


Countdown

by Nnoitra



Series: The Balance of Things [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: //dw there will be lesbians at some point, Alternate Universe - High School, Drama, F/M, Homophobia, Human AU, M/M, Multi, Off-screen Relationship(s), Other, Past Relationship(s), Slow Build, Tattoos, Tension, it's like a high school au? But different?, mosquito violence, slight gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:10:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5686999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nnoitra/pseuds/Nnoitra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After moving to a new town, Grimmjow realizes that his life is going to spiral out of control thanks to the past, the present and the future. With everything coming together and falling apart, how is he supposed to keep up with school and discover more about his friends and himself than ever before? Occasionally he will wonder 'why is everything like this', but dwelling in your thoughts never did any good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years back, meaning to make it an entire series based not only on Grimmjow and Ulquiorra but of their friends and families as well. However, I am finally working on chapter 2. Progress is painfully slow so dont expect another chapter ANYTIME SOON. I just want to see how this one will go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, this was written a long time ago, so please. Push your way through the first chapter to the second. It get's a lot better since everything after chapter 1 is much more recent. If I said at any point that this may or may not be continued, then ignore it, for I am in no way giving this up. I'm having too much fun writing it!

Epilogue

Getting ready for school sucks, it always does. One does not simply wake up and be ready for school. It takes up precious time of ones life. Minutes they will never get back. Ever. Only thing worse than getting ready for school in the morning, is getting ready for a new school. You know that you're not going to know shit about the rules, and you're not even going to know anyone at all. You're going to fucking hate it. 

At least, this is what Grimmjow Jeagerjaques, senior student, thinks. 

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques is a 17 year old senior student, who in his last year of school had a big change in his life- his family moved across the country and sent him to a whole new school. In a whole new town, full of all these new people.  
This is where his story begins.

~Start~

'Stupid fucking school... I was so goddamn close ta' graduating! Stupid parents- you can't just move like that when I only have about 6 months of school left! They've ruined my fucking life.' Grimmjow internally yelled as if people could hear him. Grabbing a wash-cloth from the basin, he turned on the tap and soaked the linen. Deeming the cloth wet enough, he turned the handle of the tap, stopping the continuous flow of water. 

Using the wet cloth, he rubbed his face, scrubbing until it was a baby-pink color. Water dripped down from his chin, and onto his chest, sliding down to be caught by the hem of his black boxers, and soaking into the silky fabric. Drying himself off with a hand towel,Grimmjow made his way back to his bedroom to dress himself for school.  
Grabbing his bag, and some toast, Grimmjow rushes out the door just in time. Just in time to miss the fucking bus.

Cursing his bad luck Grimmjow ran as fast as he could so as not to be late for his first day of his new school. He remembered the route to the school after having memorised it in-case of situations like this. Running full speed for 5 minutes straight had started taking it's effects on Grimmjow and he slowed to a jogging pace. Another minute went by and the school came into view at the end of the road. 

"Thank freaking hell..." He muttered to himself, breathing deeply as he approached the large iron gates of the school. Today was going to be a long day...

Upon hearing the bell ring to signal the start of class, Grimmjow shuffled his way to class. The school office had given him a timetable, and he'd figured it out pretty easily enough, since it was like his old one, just jumbled up with different subjects. He made his way to classroom 11 and waited outside for the teacher to arrive. Other students were staring at him, but he couldn't care less- he was use to the stares of people. After all, he bright blue hair that matched his eyes. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Grimmjow studied the class, determining the people there that he could get along with, and the people he couldn't get along with. He decided that class was pretty boring and had all the usual students in it, the girly-girls, the girls who acted like sluts, the rude boys who thought they were cool, the emo, the Otaku and the sporty people. Sighing Grimmjow instead focused on not just giving up and walking home right then.

After a couple minutes of nothing but boredom, the teacher finally arrived and ushered the class inside. Grimmjow was about to go and sit at the back of the class in a random seat, when the teacher grabbed the back of his shirt.

"Hey!-" Grimmjow squeaked- in a manly squeak of course. 

"So you're the new student I presume?" The teacher asked. Grimmjow nodded curtly. "Alright, may I get your name please?" He asked.

"Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez." Grimmjow replied, smirking when the teacher raised an eyebrow at his odd name.  
Grabbing a piece of paper off his desk, the teacher pulled a pen out of his pocket and had it ready to write, "And how do you spell that?" He asks, awaiting Grimmjow's answer. 

"G R I M M J O W J E A G E R J A Q U E Z" He replies slowly.  
The teacher nods and says "Thank you." and shows Grimmjow to his seat. 

Once Grimmjow had settled down, and gotten his books and pencil case out, he decided to see who he had been seated next to. Glancing at the desk next to him, he could see pale hands, with long thin fingers, sketching a small drawing on the side of the worksheet. Looking to his other side he notices that no one is sitting there. Grimmjow, not wanting to stare at the other person uses the reflection on his phone screen to look at the person beside him. 

Choppy black hair, and blank stare, bright green eyes that seemed to glow in the reflection on the phone screen, mouth seeming to be in a straight line, relaxed and shut. 'So the emo guy is the one I've been seated next to, huh.' Grimmjow thought to himself as he continued to stare at the reflection in phone screen. 

Suddenly green eyes turned and looked straight into Grimmjow's own, through the phone screen as if knowing he was being watched the whole time. "May I ask why you were staring at me?" A quiet almost inaudible voice comes from beside Grimmjow making him jump in his seat. 

"I uh, wasn't staring at you." Grimmjow replies quickly, embarrassment at being caught quickly making his face heat up.

"You were... but I'm not going to question your antics, you were probably just curious- after all, you are new here, but you were probably too embarrassed to actually look at me to know what I looked like." He said quietly. Grimmjow frowned as he turned to look at boy sitting next to him. 

"What the fuck?" Was all Grimmjow could manage to blurt out. 

The boy pursed his lips, "I was simply saying my opinion- but if that was wrong then I apologize. That may not have been your reason at all." He replied.

Grimmjow turned back to his school work. "Right..." He said, before completely ignoring the boy next to him for the rest of the lesson. He was certainly a weird one, and he hoped he didn't have to be in any more classes with him, being in Geography with him was enough already. It was hate at first conversation.

The bell went to signal the end of class, and as Grimmjow stood up to get out of the classroom as fast as possible, his bag hit the side of the table and sent it crashing to the ground. Only problem was, was that it was the boy next to Grimmjow's table. 

Muttering strings of curses, Grimmjow dumped his bag on the ground and bent to pick the table back up. He noticed that he'd made everything on the fall onto the ground in the process. Sighing, Grimmjow picked up the books and pens that had fallen and went to hand them back to the boy. "Here's your shit- sorry 'bout that." Grimmjow said.

A small, almost invisible smile graced the boys lips. "Thank you..." He said, barely above a whisper. The boy quickly ran from the room, leaving Grimmjow standing there. 

"Fuck he's weird." Grimmjow says to himself before picking up his bag and heading to his next class.

His next class turned out to be English, and guess what. Yep, you guessed it, he was in the class again. Of fucking course. At least they were not sitting next to each other again- in-fact, he was across the class room. Thank fucking god. Grimmjow soon learned throughout the lesson, that the boys name was Ulquiorra, and that English was his best subject. He can't complain about Ulquiorra's name, since it is just as far-fetched as his own.

The end of the class soon comes around and then it is break. Grimmjow goes and sits down in one of the corners of the main quad, it's in the shade so it is darker than the rest of the area. He sits behind a pillar, so as not to be seen by people. As he gets out his lunch, a figure comes rushing past him to the very corner of small area. Grimmjow instantly notices that it is Ulquiorra. "What are you doing?" Grimmjow asks, harsher than he meant to. 

Ulquiorra jumps and turns around at the speed of light. "Oh! I didn't know you were here... I didn't know anybody would be here, I always come here. I'm sorry I'll go." He says and starts to head away from the spot.

Grimmjow, feeling a rush of guilt at taking the boys eating area, reaches out and grabs the sleeve of the boys uniform. "Wait." He says quickly, "You can stay, if you always come here then I should be the one to leave." He says. 

"N-No it's fine..." Ulquiorra replies.

"Stay." Grimmjow growls. He's not sure why he's telling this wretched boy to stay, but he can't stop himself. Hesitating slightly, Ulquiorra sits down in front of Grimmjow and silently gets out his food from the depths of his bag, glancing up every now and again. 

Both boys were very quiet, eating silently. It wasn't exactly an awkward silence, but it was just a little uncomfortable. Scrunching up his wrappers, Grimmjow stood up and walked over to the bin to dump his rubbish in it. He slumped back to get his backpack, opening it in and pulling out his timetable. Two periods left. Not to mention it was a double science. Science is good. Dissecting animals and plants always seemed to interest him.

There was still 20 minutes until the end of lunch break, and there was nothing to do of interest to Grimmjow, so he instead chose to sit back down in front of Ulquiorra. Not wanting to sit in silence for 20 minutes doing nothing, Grimmjow rummages around inside his bag and pulls out a Nintendo 3ds XL, and Pokemon: Ranger. He inserts the game in and turns the gaming device on. He plays for tens minutes, before noticing that Ulquiorra is watching him. 

"What?" He blurts out, sounding ruder than he had meant to be. 

"Is that Pokemon?" Ulquiorra asks quietly, staring intensely at the device. 

"Yeah, what about it? Not gonna annoy me about it are ya? Just 'cos I'm in high school?" Grimmjow says, frowning a little. 

"No, it's nothing of that sort. I was simply stating it was Pokemon, yet I was also going to say that I like Pokemon too." Ulquiorra says monotonously. 

Grimmjow stared with his mouth agape, shock written all over his face at discovering that the quiet emo-looking kid likes something the same as the blue haired teenager. "You like Pokemon?" Grimmjow replies with disbelief in his voice and on his face.

"I said that didn't I?" Ulquiorra raises an eyebrow slightly. Grimmjow shrugs in response. 

"Who's your favorite Pokemon?" Grimmjow asks, hanging his head and moving his character around on the screen. 

Ulquiorra thought for a moment before answering, "I suppose that would be Umbreon." 

Grimmjow glances up with a smirk on his face, "Hey that's my favorite too." He says, chuckling a little.

The two boys ended up getting into a conversation about Pokemon, lasting for the rest of lunch. They discussed the favorite Pokemon, their least favorite, which Trainers were their favorites and so much more. Eventually the lunch bell rang they both packed up their belongings. Both in a brighter mood than they have been all day. 

Grimmjow stands up and stretches his back while flexing his arms to get the blood pumping again. He offers his hand to Ulquiorra and pulls him up onto his feet. Ulquiorra is about to walk off when Grimmjow asks him, "What do you have now?" 

Ulquiorra turns his head to look back at Grimmjow, "Double science." He replies. 

Grimmjow grins, "Sweet, I've got that too." They both walk to their next class.

They both line up outside the classroom as the teacher had not yet arrived. Grimmjow was excited to go to science as it was his favorite subject, but when he looked at the faces of the students his excitement came to a sudden stop. Everyone looked petrified and some even had grimaces on their faces. One or two of the students actually walked right away from the class line and down the hall to the bathrooms, the sound of a lock clicking shut was heard. Suddenly Grimmjow was worried.

Grimmjow felt a tap on his shoulder and a note slide into his; one of the students behind him had done it. Grimmjow glanced over his shoulder to see one of the students from his previous class ('Renji' was it?- He couldn't remember.), a boy with red-as-fire hair tied to the top of his, making him resemble a pineapple. The red head gave him a curt nod and a stern but worried look. 

Grimacing, Grimmjow unfolded the note and read the contents.

[Hey new kid- now's ya chance to run- teacher will be here in a few minutes]

Grimmjow stared at the note, a little shocked. 'So it's the teacher...' He thought to himself as he scrunched the note up and put it in his pocket. 'I bet the teacher's just really strict. That's why no one likes them.'

Grimmjow had never been more wrong in his life. The teacher was strict, sure, but damn he was scary. I dont just mean intimidating-scary, I mean actually full on terrifying. Like he started off as a junior weirdo but graduated to terrifying. He introduced himself to Grimmjow as Mr.Kurotsuchi. The name was no problem, since everyone had odd names here, but why does he wear that weird hat? Why did he paint his face black and white? Is he wearing contacts? He keeps looking at us like he's going to kill us slowly and horribly. 

He quietly ushered everyone into the classroom, eyeing Grimmjow in particular. Everyone shuffled into the classroom and went to different seats. Grimmjow sat down in a seat at the back of the classroom. He took in his surroundings. The classroom looked like a normal science room at first, but looking over it again and taking in the detail proved Grimmjow to be wrong. 

Jars of things lined cabinets along the walls and on some spare desks. Grimmjow couldn't make out what shapes were in the jars, nor did he want to know. The classroom had a strange smell to it- kind of like the smell you get when you hunt ants or worms with a magnifying glass on a hot sunny day. He knew the smell, but it was like it was mixed with another smell, an unidentified smell that Grimmjow couldn't quite place. It was a little edgy but he chose to ignore it. 

Ulquiorra seated himself beside Grimmjow, pulling out his textbook and a black pen. Grimmjow followed suit, pulling out his own brand new science book and pencil. The classroom was completely silent except for the teacher, Mr Kurotsuchi, tapping his ruler on the desk and staring intensely at Grimmjow, not even blinking once. Grimmjow tried his hardest to not make eye contact with the horrifying teacher. 

The teacher stood up and walked to the side of the classroom, where he pulled out a drawer and walked over to the nearest table and placed it on there. He pulled out a big pile of work books and walked around the classroom handing them out to every two students. He placed one on the table that Grimmjow and Ulquiorra shared. Grimmjow was pretending to be focused on making a title page for his science book so that he didn't have to look at the teacher. 

"I know your name so dont bother tellin' me." Mr Kurotsuchi says quietly, ruffling the top of Grimmjow's head, leaving his hand a few seconds longer than necessary before going back to his spot at the front of the classroom and sitting down in his seat. 

Grimmjow shuddered and tried not to look at the teacher through the rest of the lesson. Thankfully they were only doing theory- He couldn't imagine what Prac would be like. Well he could, but it wasn't a very nice mental image, and honestly it scared the fuck out of him. Although he may not look it, he's simply a big geeky high-school kid who has a few months until graduation and doesn't quite feel like dying before that. Especially not in the hands of that creepy maniac of a teacher. Grimmjow vowed to himself to try and make it to the end of this lesson. Double lesson. 

The school bell rang to signal the end of class and everyone shot up as fast as the could in order to get out of the classroom as quick as possible. Grimmjow noticed in his rush that even Ulquiorra was packing his things up at the speed of light. The two boys both finished packing their bags at the same time, Grimmjow denying to himself that he slowed down a little just so he could talk to Ulquiorra. 

They both shot out the door as fast as they could and walked quickly down the hallway towards the front doors of the school building. As soon as they were out the door they leaned on the wall and breathed heavily. Ulquiorra lightly clutching his side where it was obvious he had a stitch. Grimmjow wiped the sweat off his forehead and let out a laugh. 

"I seriously thought I was gonna die in there! That teacher's intense." Grimmjow pants. 

Ulquiorra smirks a little, "I admit he is creepy." Ulquiorra says. 

"Just creepy? I think you think he's terrifying. I haven't seen you move that fast all day." He jokes, mock pushing Ulquiorra's shoulder.

"I suppose so." Ulquiorra chuckles. 

With their breathing rates back to normal, Grimmjow and Ulquiorra walk out the front gates of the school, and head off down to the street together, heading home. talking about Pokemon and joking about the teachers. Grimmjow thought it was rather pleasant to be talking to this boy. His first impression of him was nothing more than an empty emotionless being, but he admits now that this is not the case, and that Ulquiorra is a great person to talk with. 

They arrive at the place in the middle of their two homes. It's handy living across the street from each other since it means that they can meet up on weekends or hang out after school. Easier travel too. They turn and look at each other, Grimmjow with a lazy half grin.

"Well see you tomorrow, I guess." He says, not really sure what gesture he should make to say goodbye. 

"Goodbye, Grimmjow." Ulquiorra says, giving a little bow before backing up slowly. 

Grimmjow just nodded in reply and backed up into his own driveway. Saying goodbye is awkward when you've just met a new friend and you're not close enough too them to just simply say, "See you." Grimmjow slammed the door behind him and threw his bag down on the ground, groaning from how awkward it all was. He decides that a big glass of soda will calm his nerves. 

Sighing, Grimmjow walks towards the kitchen and towards the fridge. Opening the fridge door he pulls out a bottle of lemon soda. Popping the lid he takes a long swig from the bottle before leaving the kitchen and going straight to his room. He pushes the door open and lays down on his bed. Tiredness falling over him like a veil and he falls asleep almost instantly, forgetting dinner completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading the poorly written chapter 1.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmjow makes another friend through injury, McDonald's and Secret Incidents Of The Past (TM)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter didn't take me as long as I thought it would.

Grimmjow wakes suddenly to the loud knocking coming the front door. He sighs and drags himself out of bed to go answer. It was times like these that he wished his parents didn't have to work so early in the goddamn morning; he hated getting up to answer the door. 

Grumbling, he made his way down the stairs and to the door, pulling it open and mumbling a sleepy "yeah?".

"Aren't you coming to school today?" A quiet yet deep voice replied. 

"Oh. Yeah of course I am." Grimmjow says, sending his new friend a confused glance, noting they were not wearing their school uniform.

"Are you planning to skip first period because it's maths?" Ulquiorra asks, giving a disapproving look to Grimmjow.

"No? Why would I skip?" Grimmjow was getting confused now, why the hell was Ulquiorra asking him all this shit?

"Well I think you'll find you're going to be late if you dont hurry up and get some clothes on." The shorter boy says, making a hand gesture towards Grimmjow's bare chest.

"What's the time?" He was starting to get a bit worried now, since he realized he's forgotten to set his alarm yesterday. 

"Well school started an hour ago, so you've missed first period anyway." Ulquiorra says.

"So it's like, 9 or some shit?" Grimmjow grips his hair, "Oh fuck."

Ulquiorra waited patiently for the teal haired boy to calm down. "If it helps you any better, I was planning on skipping school today and only noticed that you hadn't gone to school because the sensor lights outside my house didn't turn on." 

"Your what?" Grimmjow asks. 

"My family has installed sensor lights to avoid me or my brothers 'sneaking out', only she paid for super good ones. If so much as a cat was to walk by on the other side of the road they would turn on. They didn't do it this morning except when that boy who rides his bike to school came past. I expected it to turn on when you left as well. When it didn't, I wondered whether you were still asleep or not. My guess was correct." Ulquiorra explained. 

"Well ok, but why didn't you wake me earlier?" Grimmjow sighs. 

"My mother was still home. She thought I had already gone to school, so I couldn't leave until she left for work." He says.

"Why the fuck were you going to skip school anyway?" Grimmjow asks, he didn't think Ulquiorra was the type to skip out on his education.

"School assembly, test day, PE. It's like all the worst things in school combined into one day. I skip it every time. The school doesn't really care if I do that or not, however they do still send letters home to my parents about it. But the letters never go through; I put a stop to that ages ago." Ulquiorra explained. 

"How'd you do that?" Grimmjow asks, a little curious now.

"It's easy. I tell my mother I'm off to school, grab the letters from the mailbox and chuck them in the dumpster down the road. Of course, I tear the address off them first, just so if they're found they're not returned." Ulquiorra's voice was monotone through the entire explanation, Grimmjow found it a little humorous to see someone with a dead expression and flat voice explain how he skips school like some kinda teenage rebel. 

"Well then. What are you gonna do now?" Grimmjow asks.

"I was just going to watch YouTube all day. Maybe read a book. Are you still going to go to school?" Ulquiorra says.

Grimmjow shrugs, "I dunno. If we're already late then I guess there's no point in going. Wanna hang out, then?"

"Sure. Can I hang out at your place? I dont want to stay at my house in case my mother comes home." Ulquiorra asks.

"Yeah, I dont mind. Come on in." Grimmjow stands aside and lets the other into the house. 

"I figured that since you were new to our school you might not want to skip at all, but I suppose I was wrong." Ulquiorra says, looking curiously around Grimmjow's house. 

"I do care about my education, surprisingly, but at my old school I skipped heaps. So I guess it doesn't really matter. Besides, I was still almost top in my class." Grimmjow says, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it.

"You have a nice house." Ulquiorra mutters quietly.

"Thanks." Grimmjow replies. "Well what do you wanna do? Watch tv, read a book, any games you wanna play? We dont really have much here." Grimmjow says, walking towards the living room, Ulquiorra following behind him.

"What games do you have?" Ulquiorra asks curiously. 

"Unfortunately I have no multiplayer games, yeah, sucks pretty bad, huh?" Grimmjow says, laughing.

"Yeah, that is pretty bad." Ulquiorra nods his head lightly.

"How about we just watch a movie?" Grimmjow suggests.

Ulquiorra shrugs, "Yeah sure. Can I choose what movie?" 

"Go for it." Grimmjow says, gesturing towards a large DvD stand in the corner of the living room.

Ulquiorra walks over to it and studies it for a few minutes, pulling out a case, scanning it and putting it back on the stand. Eventually he picked up a movie and decided upon it. Carrying it over to the Tv, he placed the DvD in the machine and started it up. Together they got comfortable on either side of the couch. Ulquiorra had chosen Lord of the Rings, and honestly Grimmjow was not going to complain since it was his favorite movie. 

The movie started and the two of them had their eyes locked to the screen for a little over half the movie until Grimmjow paused the movie. "Need to take a piss, I'll be back in a moment."

"I need to go too, so I'll wait for you to go first." Ulquiorra replies, watching as Grimmjow makes his way over to a small corridor leading off to the right just before the stairs. 

As soon as Grimmjow is out of sight, Ulquiorra pulls out his phone and starts texting his cousin.

10:45 Ulquiorra

I'm at someones house who is not my own, can you pick me up?

10:45 From Nnoitra

Dude lol are you ok?

10:46 Ulquiorra

I'm fine, he lives across the road from me. Ring me and give me an excuse to leave in 5 minutes. I'll pay you $10.

10:47 From Nnoitra

Sure whatever man. Treat me to lunch though.

10:47 Ulquiorra

Fine.

Ulquiorra puts his phone away and breathes a sigh of relief. He'd forgotten exactly why he has no friends; the hate of being around unfamiliar people for too long. Grimmjow wasn't so bad, and they had the same tastes, but he didn't think he was ready to suddenly just get close and friendly with someone he'd met a day ago. He thinks of ways to apologize to Grimmjow for suddenly leaving, but thinks of none. He hears the bathroom door open and stands up. 

"Bathroom's free. Hey are you ok? You look a little pale." Grimmjow says, frowning a little.

Ulquiorra holds back a small laugh, "I'm always pale." He says as he walks past Grimmjow to head to the bathroom. 

He shuts the bathroom door behind himself, and hears Grimmjow doing stuff in the kitchen, the clang of a dropped pan or tray. He laughs lightly and continues doing what he went there for. Meanwhile in the kitchen, Grimmjow tries and fails to stack some baking trays back up in a stack. Giving up, he chucks them into a messy pile on the kitchen bench, deciding to always look where he tries to hit mosquitoes from now on. Damn nasty little fuckers.

There it is; he can hear it again. That obnoxious buzzing of the small bloodsucking bastard. Grimmjow decides he had enough and grabs a knife from the utensils drawer and goes on a hunt. Knowing full well that a knife will not work, he tries anyway because he's 1- just that pissed, 2- wants the little shit to feel the pain, 3- wonders vaguely if Ulquiorra will come out of the bathroom and find this somewhat amusing. 

He sees it flying around close to the bench, frantically he tries stabbing at it multiple times, missing every single time. He tries squashing it with his hand as well. He doesn't hear the bathroom door open, neither does he hear the frantic "GRIMMJOW WHAT THE FUCK!?" Screech erupt from Ulquiorra's mouth. The only thing that he can think of his "holy shit holy shit holy fucking shit my hand".

Ulquiorra rushes over and grabs Grimmjow's left arm, holding it down before he decides to lift it. "Grimmjow how the fuck did this happen? Why is there a knife sticking out of your goddamn hand? Did you do that on purpose? You realize you have to go to the doctor right now, dont you?" He says, panic setting in. He couldn't believe this was happening. 

"Why cant I feel it, though?" Grimmjow says, reaching with his other hand to try and pull the knife. 

"Don't pull it! You'll lose a heap of blood. You cant feel it!? That's probably not good." Somehow his voice still sounded monotonous even though panic was clearly there. 

Just then Ulquiorra's phone rang. Shit! He'd forgotten about Nnoitra coming to his social anxiety almost-breakdown. Good timing, he supposed. Pulling out his phone he quickly answered it. 

"Nnoitra? You're outside? Good, change of plans. I need you to drive me and a friend to the doctors. I'll buy you lunch AND one small item of your choice, I dont care. It's an emergency." Ulquiorra says hurriedly, still trying to stop Grimmjow from pulling the knife out and hang up the phone.

"Who was that?" Grimmjow asks.

"My cousin. He sometimes comes over to my house when I skip, I didn't think he'd come over today though. But good timing though, now dont move your hand too much, he'll take us to the doctor." Ulquiorra explained. 

They both slowly made their way out the door to the small white car parked outside. A lanky boy with long black wound the window to get a better look at the two boys outside of his car. 

"Holy shit dude how the fuck did that happen? Did my cousin stab you or something?" Nnoitra laughed, but still looked kind of concerned. 

"Uh, no. I did it." Grimmjow says, looking away. 

They all clambered into the car and started driving towards the doctors clinic. Grimmjow sheepishly explained what happened whilst also trying to pull the knife out. Ulquiorra sat beside Grimmjow in the back seat to stop him from removing the knife, slapping his hand away every time he tried. Eventually they pulled into the emergency parking spot and parked the car. They walked inside and straight to the front desk, Ulquiorra explaining the situation to a slightly horrified yet amused nurse. 

"I'll get the doctor right away, please wait here." The nurse said as she hurried off into a back room. 

__

Half an hour later, Grimmjow left the doctors clinic and was climbing back into Nnoitra's car; his hand stitched up and bandaged, the knife wrapped in paper and shoved into a bag. Ulquiorra helped him put on the seat-belt and they started driving away. 

"I cant believe you stabbed your own hand trying to hunt a fucking mosquito." Nnoitra laughed as he drove.

"Dude shut up, the thing was pissin' me off." Grimmjow growled.

"Tch, whatever, man. Hey Ulqui, you owe me lunch and I'm hungry right now." Nnoitra says, glancing into the rear-view mirror to look at Ulquiorra.

"I dont have my wallet with me, I'll have to buy you lunch tomorrow." He replies quietly.

"I'll buy you guys lunch." Grimmjow grumbles. 

"Oh, you dont have to do that." Ulquiorra says.

"Sure I do, you guys took me to the freaking doctors after I stabbed my own fucking hand." He says.

"As long as I get my free lunch, I dont care who it comes from." Nnoitra grins.

Nnoitra pulled up into the nearest McDonald's. Ulquiorra sighed, knowing this is where they would end up, Grimmjow didn't say anything on Nnoitra's awful choice of lunch. He wasn't going to complain because after all, it was cheap as heck and he didn't have much money.

They all got out of the car and walked into the large fast food place. There wasn't many people there since school was on, meaning no students around to be loud and disruptive and mess up the area with food wrappers.

Everyone orders their food and Grimmjow pays, Ulquiorra refusing to let him pay for his food, but ultimately giving in and allowing the other to do so. They find a spot to sit and start eating. 

"So you're Ulqui's new friend, huh?" Nnoitra asks, taking a huge bite out of his burger.

"Uh, yeah." Grimmjow replies, shoveling down a few of his chips.

"How?" Nnoitra continues.

"What do you mean how?" Grimmjow asks with a mouthful of food.

"Ulquiorra has a lot of trouble making friends, you know. How'd you do it?" Nnoitra asks.

"Well tha-" Grimmjow starts but gets interrupted. 

"You realize I am right here, next to you guys? Please stop talking about me. Just so you know, we're friends because we have the same interests." Ulquiorra explains calmly, popping a nugget into his mouth. 

"Men?" Nnoitra asks, sipping his cola.

Ulquiorra chokes on his nugget as Grimmjow chokes on his chips. Nnoitra continues to smirk. 

"Please excuse me." Ulquiorra rasps as he gets up from his chair and heads towards the bathroom. 

After Grimmjow calms down enough to breathe again, he asks, "So he's into guys?" 

Nnoitra nods, "Yeah, but I didn't mean to out him like that. I just assumed you knew. If you have a problem with his sexuality then leave right now. As much as I love to tease him, I will stand up for him." 

"No no, I dont have a problem with it. It's just... lately I might have been questioning my own sexuality? I mean, I still like girls but, maybe men too? I dont know! Maybe just a little?" Grimmjow says, feeling his face heat up a little at the confession.

"Oh. Well it might be still too early too tell. I'm not callin' it a phase, no way. For many it is not a phase, but for some it is, it's curiosity and attraction, but confusion as to whether or not you'll feel that way forever. If it makes you feel better, my friend Was Bisexual for most of his high school life, but last year he came to me and was really confused, he said 'maybe I'm not bi?'. He was upset because for a year or two he had been known as bi, and was really confident about it. We didn't question him or anything. It's just he ended up losing all that attraction and like for one of the sexes that he had before." Nnoitra says, suddenly in serious mode.

"So what you're saying is that you can be completely confident in how you identify but for some people it can still change?" Grimmjow asks.

"Hm, pretty much. It just takes time. Feelings dont always stay the same. You could be straight for 20 years and then suddenly, or slowly, you're might realize, 'hey, I have an attraction to the same sex' and then after you think it over you notice that maybe you're Bisexual, or Pansexual." Nnoitra explains.

"Pansexual? What's that?" Grimmjow frowns. 

"It's a less known term, but also more used. People dont like it when we say that 'Pan falls under the Bi umbrella', but it does. In reality, Bi means 2, but it also can mean 'multiple' so it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be 2. Pan is multiple. It will not mean 2. It will not mean 3. It will mean ALL and EVERYTHING. A Pansexual person will not date a specific gender, they will date anyone who they like. It is not just 'date for personality,' a popular Pan stereotype, it can be for looks as well as personality, or you could literally just not care who it is. Take me for example," Nnoitra pauses to take a bite of his burger.

"With me, I've known I was into men for a really long time. But, my choices of people are very limited. Why? Because I go for only very specific types of people, and it's hard to find them because I can't ask them if this or that is something they do or like because the quality in a person I'm looking for is rather... 'edgy'. I'm pansexual, but with a preference for men. I'd date anyone as long as they had the certain quality to match mine. I'm probably sounding pretty vague about it, but I'm not comfortable talking about it." Nnoitra finishes. 

"OK yeah I think I understand a lot better now." Grimmjow nods, "I might be Bi? Maybe not Pan though, I dont think I could date anyone, I feel like I only could date a few people. Maybe? I dont know, there is only really attraction, I dont feel much towards another person. I mean, I did go out with a... a dude for a month or two, to see if I liked men... Since we were both kinda curious... I think he got his answer, but I'm still not sure." Grimmjow was starting to get a little bit fidgety from nerves. 

"It's ok to be unsure. Like I said, you'll know. You'll know when ya' know. It'll just suddenly, or slowly, click into place. But anyway, I'm just glad you're not against gays and stuff. Be a good friend to Ulqui. He needs company and I cant always be with him, we fight a lot but we're still friends. You live near him, right? It'll be easier to stay with him then." Nnoitra continues. 

They look up when they hear Ulquiorra returning to the table, somehow looking a little paler before. He sits down opposite Grimmjow and looks at his nuggets. They dont look as appetizing as they did before. He looks up and at Nnoitra, scowling slightly, avoiding eye contact with Grimmjow. 

"Hey... sorry about that." Nnoitra says quietly. 

"It doesn't matter." Ulquiorra says. 

"I dont care if you're gay, just so you know..." Grimmjow says, his voice lowered. 

Ulquiorra looked up at him, "Really? Thank you. I guess I must have misjudged you."

"Misjudged me? Did you think I'd hate you for being gay?" Grimmjow sounded a little bit offended.

Ulquiorra shrugged his shoulders, "Well... I thought that you looked a bit like the jocks at our school, and all the jocks dont like gays, and so I just assumed; which I shouldn't have done, I see." 

"Yeah but you didn't think I'd like Pokemon either." Grimmjow blurts out, earning a laugh from Nnoitra.

Ulquiorra looked like he wanted to crack a smile but he held it in, his face all tensed up. "Well... that's true. I guess I dont know what to think about you anymore."

"Shouldn't judge people by their looks." Nnoitra chimed in a sing song voice, earning himself a glare. 

"Fine..." Ulquiorra replies. 

"So Grimmjow, who was the person you dated before?" Nnoitra asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively in Grimmjow's direction. 

"Uh, their name was, um, I think it was Yylfordt or something. I cant really remember since it was kinda hard to say..." Grimmjow says, blushing a little bit. 

"No fucking way." Nnoitra and Ulquiorra say at almost the exact same time.

"What!?" Grimmjow squeaks.

Ulquiorra just stares at him, eyes a little wider than normal. Nnoitra is doubled over in laughter, clutching at his sides. 

"WHAT!?" Grimmjow repeats, louder this time. He was starting to get angry. 

"T-That's...!" Nnoitra takes a pause to catch his breath, "That's Szay's older brother! You fucking... dated my...friend's older ...brother!" 

Ulquiorra's hand had gone up to cover his mouth, trying so hard not to lose composure. Grimmjow just stared, his jaw slack with shock.

"You're kidding." Grimmjow says, eyebrows raised. 

"Did he...stay at your house while you were dating him?" Nnoitra laughed.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Grimmjow asked.

" 'Cos he's he fuckin' moocher. He dates, mooches, then leaves. His job doesn't pay enough for him to live anywhere nice, so he seduces, or, in your case, pretending to discover his sexuality in order to live with you and get free food and board." Nnoitra says.

"He used me?" Grimmjow growls. 

"Unfortunately, yeah. He did. But it helped you right and you didn't really like each other in the first place?" Nnoitra continues.

"Well, I suppose. But still, we actually acted like were dating, shitty romantic stuff and all." Grimmjow mumbles.

Nnoitra was silent for a little while, "Huh. Maybe there was a one-sided feeling?" 

"What do ya' mean?" Grimmjow says, frowning.

"Well, you said you dated for two months, right? That's pretty long for him. He normally dates a week or two at a time, then leaves suddenly. He stayed with you for over a month, and you say that you 'pretended' to be romantic with each other. Did he ever try to have sex with you?" Nnoitra asks.

"Um no he didn't. So what you're saying is..." Grimmjow started.

"That he may have had feelings for you? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Did he say anything to you before he left?" Nnoitra asks.

"Actually... I'm the one who left. I moved here just a week or so ago." Grimmjow replies.

"Holy shit he was on the receiving end of being left. Serves him right, honestly. But still, that doesn't change the fact that I'm 99% sure he had feelings for you. Whether he meant to get them or not doesn't matter. He liked you holy shit." Nnoitra says, laughing. "I gotta tell Szay' 'bout this." Nnoitra laughs, pulling out his phone from his pants pocket.  
Ulquiorra and Grimmjow were silent as Nnoitra rang up his friend.

"Hey dude you're not gonna believe this! Ulqui's new friend dated your brother. For two months... I know right!... Yes, I know you dont care... Why am I telling you? Dude it's your BROTHER for fucks sake lol! He actually LIKES someone!... tch,whatever. Killjoy...Wait no dont do tha-!" Nnoitra pulled the phone away from his ear with a disgusted look on his face, "Bitch hung up on me." 

"Naturally." Ulquiorra mutters, earning himself a deadly glare from Nnoitra. 

"Shut up." Nnoitra says, "He just didn't like hearing about his brother."

"Why didn't he like hearing about it?" Grimmjow asks, curiosity piqued. 

"They dont get along well. Actually, they hate each other's guts. I'm not actually sure why, but I feel it was probably Szayel's doing. Some sort of personal fight they were not comfortable with sharing." Ulquiorra explains. 

"I know about it, but I'm not going to be the one to share. Ulquiorra, you're right though; it is pretty personal." Nnoitra says, looking a little disgruntled.

"Why do you think it was Szayel's fault?" Grimmjow asked. 

"Well, I'm not sure honestly. It's just a feeling I have. Since Szayel...he likes to 'be the best' and likes to make others jealous or envious. Especially his brother. My personal opinion is the he ended up pushing his brother over the edge and causing him to do something drastic; probably either to Szayel, someone close to Szayel, or a friend." He glances at Nnoitra out of the corner of his eye before continuing, "Which I think is the reason a few people suddenly started hating him out of nowhere. My conclusion is that Szayel- 1- pushed him over the edge, making him becoming enraged or frustrated, 2- Szayel played a horrible prank on him, 3- Yylfordt actually did something horrible without anyone or anything egging him on. Making it 2/3 for the possibility that it was Szayel's fault. Adding to that, it would be harder to tell if it was Yylfordt that did something in the first place, because his brother ALREADY hated him and we have no proof that he did something to make him hate him more."

"Well, since that's what you've come up with then I might as well give you a little bit of information on the subject. I wont give you anything big though. Just something for you to figure out, I guess. There was a third and fourth party involved in the situation. I was there." Nnoitra confesses.

"Who was the other person?" Grimmjow asks.

"I cant say, because I didn't know them." Nnoitra says, looking uncomfortable. 

"Wait so there was a fourth party involved that wasn't you, but someone you didn't know?" Ulquiorra asks, looking more serious, if that was even possible.

"Yeah? What are you getting at?" Nnoitra asks curiously.

"I think I know them. I dont think I know their name though, but I definitely know what they looked like. If I have the right person, that is." Ulquiorra says. 

"Woah, shit, really?" Nnoitra says.

"Yeah, I think so. In fact I think they used to live where Grimmjow is now. They moved away last year, about a week or so after that incident. I think it's connected somehow because I did always see Yylfordt go to that house a lot, and I figured it was someone from his school that he was visiting, so I didn't think anything of it. It was that boy with the strange face who was in the same year as Yylfordt. I think I only recall his surname. Rinker, or something." Ulquiorra says.

"Di Roy? Di Roy Rinker?" Grimmjow asks, eyebrows raised.

"Maybe. Why, you know him?" Ulquiorra asks curiously.

"I haven't met him, but when I was 'dating' Yylfordt, he kept telling me about this boy named Di Roy Rinker. It was really positive things, too. So I figured it must have been an unrequited crush or something. He always sounded so sad when he talked about the boy. He must have really liked him. HEY! That adds onto your point that it was probably all Szayel's fault, huh Ulquiorra?" Grimmjow explains. 

"That's a pretty good point. What do you think, Nnoitra?" Ulquiorra asks.

"I'd say that you're on the right track. I cant say anything more because I'm on Szayel's side, remember?" Nnoitra scowled. 

"That's just because you have a crush on him." Ulquiorra glares at Nnoitra.

"So what?" Nnoitra hisses.

"I dont get why you dont just date that blond dude. I know you care about him, otherwise you wouldn't have let him anywhere near you." Ulquiorra replies.

"What would you know about Tesla? Sure, he's cute. But there's no way in hell he'd date ME. I'm the only friends he has. No one else likes him." Nnoitra says, leaning his chin in his hand.

"You're contradicting yourself." Ulquiorra replies, shaking his head. "Anyway, I'm going to head home, and you're our lift. We have a movie to finish."

"Tch, whatever. I'll only drop you guys home if you let me stay and watch the movie." Nnoitra says, smirking.

Ulquiorra looks at Grimmjow for the ok. Grimmjow shrugs his shoulders in reply. "Fine by me." He sighs.

__

The movie is long over and they all ended up doing a marathon of the rest of them. By the time the final movie had finished it was only really Grimmjow left awake. Nnoitra had pushed Grimmjow into the middle of the couch in order to get an end seat, but he'd ended up falling asleep with his head dangling from the arm of the couch and his legs spread out over the couch, covering Grimmjow and Ulquiorra. Grimmjow didn't really mind, because although Nnoitra was freakishly tall, he was actually super lanky and light. Ulquiorra had fallen asleep with his head resting on Grimmjow's shoulder. When Grimmjow had first noticed Ulquiorra had fallen asleep it was when a sudden soft snore had reached his ears. Not wanting to wake them, Grimmjow just waited for the movie to auto-play after it the credits had finished, deciding to get some rest himself. His mother sure as hell wouldn't mind some guests over because she'd cleaned yesterday. 

With the soft snoring of Ulquiorra on his shoulder and the comfortable warmth of Nnoitra spread out across the both of them like a blanket, Grimmjow finally drifted to sleep. None of them even realizing that it was only about 8:30 PM. Grimmjow's hand still didn't hurt, which he wasn't sure if that was a good or bad sign, but at least it was properly treated. As he slipped into unconsciousness he vaguely remembered that the bloody knife he accidentally stabbed himself with was still in the trunk of Nnoitra's car. Well, at least his hand doesn't hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed.   
> Before you ask:  
> 1- No, it's not going to be a love triangle between Nnoitra, Ulquiorra and Grimmjow. I have separate plans for Nnoitra.  
> 2- Yes, you will get to know the full version of The Incident (TM).   
> 3- No, it will not be in this story, it will be in the second part. Which is a long way off.  
> 4- This story will NOT be dumped, and if it DOES get dumped, I will give you a very early warning.   
> This series will only be dumped if I:  
> 1- Lose interest in Bleach   
> 2- Lose interest in BL   
> 3- Lose interest in writing   
> 4- Die


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmjow has a small crisis, and there is a lot of concern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? An update? Without waiting for months? I had a lot of work to do, so I thought; "Hey, let's write that fanfic chapter before you forget everything you wanted to write!"

Grimmjow was jolted awake by the sound of loud knocking on the door. Taking a second to look at his surroundings he noticed that Nnoitra was still asleep however his position had moved onto the floor. Grimmjow thought about moving Nnoitra into a more comfortable position, however his thoughts went back to the knocking on the door. Pulling himself up off the couch with one hand, he went over to the door and pulled it open only to be faced with two police officers. 

"Woah shit, officers this early. What do you guys need?" Grimmjow asks groggily once he sees who was knocking. 

"We'd like to question you about a possible murder and kidnapping." The short female officer says, her name badge she held up reading 'Rukia Kuchiki'. 

"What? Why me?" Grimmjow asks in confusion. 

"Because one of your neighbor's are missing and we've found a possible murder weapon in a vehicle parked outside your residence. If it's ok with you, we'd like to question you on this." Officer Rukia says, her face never changing expression.

Grimmjow thought for a moment before laughing, deciding it was time to wake Nnoitra. "HEY! Nnoitra!"

A groggy, "What the fuck do ya' want?" Came from the living room.

"The police are at the door." Grimmjow replies back, still laughing.

Nnoitra gets up and walks to the door to see for himself. "This shrimp is a police officer?" 

"Mind your manners, you're suspects." The other officer says, stepping forward. 

"Suspects? The fuck?" Nnoitra spits, "Grimmjow why are we suspects? What happened? Wait, where's Ulquiorra?"

Grimmjow froze, where was Ulquiorra? He didn't notice him when he woke up. "Shit, he was last night." 

The officers looked between the two boys, "So you know Ulquiorra? He was here last night?" 

Grimmjow looked at Officer Rukia, "Well yeah he was here. He fell asleep when we watched Lord of the Rings. Oh yeah, and about that murder weapon. Well the only thing it tried to murder was a mosquito." 

The Officers exchanged confused looks. "A mosquito? But it's covered in blood!" 

At this point Nnoitra burst out in uncontrollable laughter, grabbing his sides and doubling over. "This is what it's all about!? Holy shit I was so worried! Hey, hey, Grimmjow tell the story, tell them the story oh my God they'll love it!" 

"What are meant to hear?" Officer Rukia says, confusion on her face.

"Well uh, yesterday there was a mosquito, and you know how those little shits are the most annoying things on the planet, right? Well, I got fuckin' pissed at one and tried stabbing it with the knife, but..." Grimmjow held up his hand to show the bandage, "I got myself instead. This guy here drove me to the doctor. We left the knife in the car."  
"Ah, right. Well if that's the case all we need to do now is find Ulquiorra. His mother rang us saying he never came home from school. When she rang the school to find out, it appears he hadn't been. According to the school he never comes that day anyway, so absence from school isnt abnormal for him. However, if you have seen him around last night then he cant be. Be on the lookout for him and contact us if you find him. We'll be going now." Officer Rukia says turning around to leave. 

The other officer was about to say his farewells when around the corner came Ulquiorra. "Huh? Police? What do they want?" He asks Grimmjow, looking worriedly over at the police. 

"Are you Ulquiorra?" The other officer says, pushing the door open more to get a better look at him.

"Uh yeah. Oh my God, did my mother ring you? I bet she did. Stupid bitch." Ulquiorra growled. 

Grimmjow and the officer looked taken aback. "Your mother is very worried about you." The officer says.

"I told her I was staying over here! She's only worried because she's a bible fucker and thinks that 'video games are satanic' and shit. She thinks I'm going to be corrupted. She probably got too nervous and rang you guys. Sorry for inconveniencing you, officer. You can go." Ulquiorra replied grumpily, walking back into the darkness of the living room.

"Well perhaps not the result we thought we would get, but good enough. Sorry for taking up your time." The officer says, "Oh yeah, I'm Ichigo. Forgot to pull out my badge before, whoops. I'm kinda new." 

"Well good talkin' to you Officer Ichigo." Grimmjow replies, slamming the door and walking into the living room.

"Where the fuck were you before? Where'd Nnoitra go? What the fuck is even going on right now?" Grimmjow sighs, flinging himself down onto the couch beside Ulquiorra.

"I was in the bathroom. We have school in an hour. Nnoitra's in the kitchen probably eating all your food. I talked to your mom before, she's very nice." Ulquiorra replies, sipping on a drink.

"You spoke with my mom?" Grimmjow asks.

"Yes, I did. She said she's amazed you fit in so well here. She didn't expect that, apparently." Ulquiorra replied.

"She didn't think I'd fit in? What, why!?" Grimmjow asked.

"I asked her why she thought that but she told me to just ask you." Ulquiorra says, shrugging his shoulders. 

"Well I have no idea." Grimmjow says quickly, Ulquiorra started to wonder if he was lying or not, but didn't press further on the matter, figuring that if there was a reason then it would be up to Grimmjow to tell about it when he is ready.

Grimmjow on the other hand was thinking about why his mother would have said that. Why would she have thought that? Was there some reason he gave her to think that at some point? Did he do something? Say something? Grimmjow decides that he will have to ask her about it later on after his guests have left, his curiosity bugging him.

"So what's the deal with your mother anyway?" Grimmjow asks. 

"I don't actually live with her, it's hard enough to call her mother. I live with my adoptive parents really. It's just, my birthmother really is a nut. She constantly calls where I live to ask if I'm there and if I don't answer she calls police thinking I'm missing. Police usually ignore her, but I guess since that Ichigo was new then he wouldn't know." Ulquiorra shrugs, "Also can we not talk about her? She makes me uncomfortable." 

"Yeah sure, that's fine." Grimmjow replies. 

A few minutes silence goes by as they wander around the house cleaning up whatever mess they had made the previous night.

"Um, Grimmjow, is it ok if I ask you a personal question?" Ulquiorra asks, putting a cup back in the sink.

"Yeah sure." Grimmjow replies slowly, wondering what Ulquiorra was going to ask him.

"Does your mother know that you are into boys as well as girls? Is she aware that you dated Yylfordt?" Ulquiorra asks, resting a hand on Grimmjow's shoulder as if in an act of comfort. 

Grimmjow frowned, he hadn't told his mother about any of that yet; it's not that he was afraid to tell her, more like he just....hadn't thought about it. "Eh? No, I haven't. I guess I forgot." 

"She doesn't know? Are you absolutely sure of that? Can you think of any time she may have seen you with Yylfordt?" Ulquiorra continues.

"I'm pretty sure? I think? Well now that you've asked me, I'm not sure anymore!" Grimmjow starts to panic a little. Many questions rush through Grimmjow all at once; What would his mother think? Would she be ok with his interest in boys? Would she hate it? Would she hate him for it?  
"Hey, hey, breathe Grimmjow, slowly, and try to calm yourself. You're on the verge of a panic attack, I can see it." Ulquiorra tries to calm Grimmjow down by gently rubbing his hand on Grimmjow's shoulder as a sign of comfort.

"What if she found out, though?! What if she doesn't agree with it, and hates me now? What if she's not the loving mother I always thought she was!? Has she been deceiving me!? Is this why I moved!?" Grimmjow says, grabbing Ulquiorra by the shoulders. 

Sighing, Ulquiorra pushed Grimmjow down onto the couch and sat beside him. At that moment Nnoitra came back into the room, as soon as he saw Ulquiorra with a concerned face sitting beside a Grimmjow with his head in his lap he knew something was wrong almost instantly. He walks over and kneels in front of Grimmjow.

"Hey, you ok? Ulqui what happened?" He asked in concern.

"It's just... hold on. Grimmjow please wait here a bit, I have to talk to Nnoitra for a second." Ulquiorra says, Grimmjow just waves him off and goes back to his overthinking.

Ulquiorra stands back up and grabs Nnoitra by the wrist, pulling him out of the room. "Grimmjow hasn't told his mother that he might like boys. Or that he dated Yylfordt. I think he's gone into some kind of pre-shock? Maybe because he's overthinking how his mother might react to the news. I dont know. But he's panicking over it." He explains.

"That's all you needed to say? You didn't have to drag me away, you know. I get how he might be under stress trying to tell her, but... I get the feeling you know something." Nnoitra replies.

"Yeah, I said I had a chat with his mother this morning. I did, and I dont think she's very nice at all. As you know, I'm very good at reading people's personalities. I think I said to Grimmjow that I thought she was nice, but... that was more to not seem so rude. I was chatting to her about life stuff, like previous lovers, school subjects, that sort of stuff. I... outed myself to her to see her opinion on sexuality. Since I'm pretty open anyway, it wasn't that hard for me. She didn't react but she did get very tense after that. I dont think she likes it at all, but to not seem like a bad person, I'm pretty sure she held back from doing anything. She said she had to leave for work after that and she went out back where her car was apparently parked."

Ulquiorra pauses to take a breathe a bit before continuing, "I followed her quietly to see if she was going to do something, but instead she started dialing someone on her phone. I was definitely suspicious because she looked really mad. That was when I heard her say 'we have to move again!'. She continued though, 'well I had to move after the last incident. I cant have it happening again; he will never be successful in life he gets caught up in all this filthy messing around! Like some animal!'. I didn't stick around to hear the rest, though I think I probably should have. I just left to make some tea. That's when the cops came to the door. Looking for me, apparently." 

"What, wait, where is she now?" Nnoitra says, frowning.

"I dont know." Ulquiorra replies.

Just then a door to the right of Nnoitra slams open and a pissed looking woman with long blonde hair tied into a bun comes storming out, almost knocking Nnoitra over.  
"Oh! Sorry dears!" She says with a clearly fake smile. She leaves to walk past them, keeping eye contact with Ulquiorra for a second before walking out past them and towards the front door., seemingly unconcerned with the everything going on in the room.

Once she's gone, Nnoitra turns to Ulquiorra and asks, "What are gonna do? Do we tell him or ...?" 

"We have to tell him. We cant NOT tell him. What if he tells her before we can help him out? She might do something." Ulquiorra says. 

"I dont want another friend to get hurt over stuff like this. I think we should tell him after he gets out of school." Nnoitra replies.

"No, we tell him before that. Otherwise he'll just panic about whether she'll agree to his sexuality or not while he's at school and make it known to everyone that he's vulnerable at the moment; and he is new to the school, so other students would try to pick on him or ask him about his life, and while he's in this state he'll get upset. I know what it's like, and it's a horrible feeling. If we tell him beforehand then he'll have at least a little bit of closure and might be able to work around his emotions." Ulquiorra explains.

"You're good at this stuff, I'm terrible with figuring out emotions and how to act." Nnoitra admits, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Come on, we should tell him right now." Ulquiorra says quietly, turning to go back towards where Grimmjow was still seated on the couch.

When they walked back into the other room, they noticed that Grimmjow was lying down on the couch instead of being simply seated. Ulquiorra sighs and walks over to him, sitting in front of him and gently shaking him awake, since he had dozed off.

"Huh?" He mumbles. 

"Grimmjow we have to talk." Ulquiorra says quietly.

"It sounds like a breakup." He jokes lightly.

"Grimmjow..." Ulquiorra says, holding back a small smirk. 

"Heh, what? I just wanna sleep." Grimmjow says, his eyes are still shut.

"It's about your mother." Nnoitra pipes up, pushing Ulquiorra aside and taking his spot in front of Grimmjow.

Grimmjow opens his eyes and looks over at Nnoitra in curiosity.  
"What about her?"

"Um, well we overhea- Ulquiorra overheard her, um, say stuff... Actually, Ulquiorra I think you had better be the one to explain it. I'm not good at this stuff." Nnoitra says.

"Well, before I asked you those questions before, I said I had a chat with your mother. Since I didn't know if you had told her about your liking boys, I didn't want to accidentally out you, so I outed myself to her, you know, by slipping 'my ex, he-' into our conversation to see how she'd react. Well, she didn't take it to well, but didn't outwardly do anything to me. I'll cut the story short, but the reason you moved here was because she didn't want you around Yylfordt, or something like that. She's not ok with this. I'm so sorry, Grimmjow. I'll help in any way I can." Ulquiorra explains.

Grimmjow was silent for a minute, mulling over what to say, what to do. He always though his mother was a kind and nice woman, raising a teenage boy on her own. It must have been tough, so whenever he had Yylfordt move in he thought that maybe it was really hard on her, and that it was the reason she was always tense. He was a little confused why she didn't offer him to come with us when we moved, but never had he thought that they moved BECAUSE of him. 

"Grimmjow? Dude, are you ok?" Nnoitra asks worriedly. 

"I'm fine." Grimmjow replies, a glaring at nothing.

"You're handling this better than I expected." Ulquiorra says, "Are you sure you're ok?" 

"I always thought it was strange that when mom moved she didn't offer Yylfordt to come with us, and of all places to move to, we moved here? The one place he's been trying to get away from? When I stop and actually think about it, all I can think is 'This is all too much of a coincidence for it to be anything but planned', The more I think about it, the more I realize, mom hated Yylfordt. She only let him live in the house because she felt sorry for his circumstances. Mom hates when she thinks people are being unfairly treated for something that may not have been their fault. Bit hypocritical but I mean, everyone has their own morals. She was fine with him at first, but... she started getting more tense and I thought it was because she was having trouble handling two boys and being a single mother. But maybe she found out that he was into guys? Maybe she found out that we dated?" Grimmjow says, frowning.

"That could be a reason..." Nnoitra says.

"What do you feel right now? Are you sad? Scared? Upset? I want to be able to help, but I cant because I'm not sure how you'll react. Sorry for my forwardness." Ulquiorra says.

"It's fine. I guess I'm feeling.... angry?" Grimmjow pauses, "Yeah, I guess I'm angry over this. I'm mad at her for not accepting him, Yylfordt, and I'm mad at her for being so false all the time. I'm mad at her for moving away and leaving him behind. I'm mad at her for everything now." 

"Do you... still like Yylfordt? Like, I know you said you only dated for a little bit because you were discovering your sexuality, but still, there must have been something or you wouldn't care so much." Nnoitra says.

"I did not feel the same as him. Why would I care, though? Because a shitty thing happened to a good person, and then another shitty thing happened again. He must feel awful. Losing two people he liked? Being kicked out? Having to run away because of something a family member did? Having to seduce people just to get shelter? His life is in ruins and he has nothing! It's worse than any of us could go through. A bit of homophobia? I can handle that. Bullying? I can handle that. They dont even come close to how shitty his life is at the moment, I'd hate to be him. I want to help him more than I need any help for myself. I can wait, he needs help now." Grimmjow says.

Ulquiorra was silent, and Nnoitra spoke up first, "I never thought of that. I feel awful now." He says quietly.

"Nnoitra..." Ulquiorra says quietly, placing a hand on the long haired man's shoulder.

"I cant get rid of my feelings for Szayel, it's too hard. I think I really like him a lot. I know he's done asshole things to people, I know all that, I know about the Yylfordt incident and... I did nothing. I let him do it... I didn't want to go against him because of my feelings for him. I feel awful I didn't do anything, or at least lecture Szay about this. I did absolutely fucking nothing." Nnoitra finishes his speech with a depressed sigh. 

"Yet despite it all you still like him?" Ulquiorra says, it sounded like a question but it was more of a statement. 

Nnoitra nods, "Yeah. Hey, dont you two have school?" He laughs quietly, changing the subject, thankfully.

"Shit!" Grimmjow says, jumping up quickly and looking at the clock on the wall above the television.

"We can talk about this later." Ulquiorra says, waving goodbye to Nnoitra as he quickly runs out the door with Grimmjow close behind. 

//

They arrive to the school right before the gates close, neither of them have any of their belongings and Grimmjow's stomach is grumbling. They have just enough time before class to stop by the cafeteria and grab some breakfasts. Grimmjow buys a pie and a can of coke, Ulquiorra goes for a powerade* and an apple-pie. They both choose a spot that's not taken at the back of the cafeteria. Sitting down opposite of each other, Grimmjow instantly stuffs his food into his mouth, Ulquiorra takes big bites too, but chews super slow.

"Grimmjow, can I tell you something about my family? I didn't feel comfortable telling you before, but... considering the circumstances, It's fine now." Ulquiorra says, sipping at his powerade.

"Yeah it's fine. I wont tell anyone if you dont want me to." Grimmjow replies, taking another bite of his pie.

"It doesn't matter who you tell, since almost everyone knows now anyway." Ulquiorra says, "But anyway, It's not about my mother who's nuts. It's my dad, he's super strict. My other dad is more lenient, but... he's really creepy and makes any friend I've ever had not want to come to my place. But then my other dad doesn't want any guests to begin with, and I guess that's why I cant have friends over anymore." Ulquiorra says it all really fast, almost choking on his drink.

"You have two dads? That's cool. Well, even if they aren't cool people, it's still cool having two dads." Grimmjow says, smiling a little.

"You think so? That's nice... Not many people have said that to me." Ulquiorra admits.

"Really? Well all the people who didn't say it to you are all assholes." Grimmjow says, smirking while taking another bite.

Ulquiorra let a small smirk escape, "Yeah..."

A thought suddenly came to Grimmjow, "Hey, you know we met two days ago as two nerds who love Pokemon, and now we're two nerds with angst-filled shit going on and we haven't talked geek at all. There is 10 minutes until the bell for class, that's 5 minutes of walking time, 5 minutes of talking time, so; Who's your favorite fictional character?" Grimmjow asks.

Ulquiorra puts his apple-pie down and crosses his arms, "How dare you ask me such a difficult question." 

"Fine, I'll dumb it down for you, who's your favorite movie character?" Grimmjow replies.

After some thought, Ulquiorra replies, " I suppose that would have to be a hard choice between Valentine and Ellen Ripley." 

"I know who Ellen is, yeah she's cool, but who's Valentine?" Grimmjow asks.

"He's from Mirrormask." Ulquiorra replies.

"Never heard of it." Grimmjow says.

"Disgusting. You have to watch it." Ulquiorra says, picking his apple-pie back up and taking a bite.

Grimmjow makes a mental note to watch that movie later, "Ok, you get to ask me a question now." 

"Video game crush?" Ulquiorra replies almost instantly.

Grimmjow freezes, thinking hard about an answer for that, "Uh... Maybe either Sylvanas Windrunner or James Sunderland." 

"James Sunderland? The Silent Hill guy?" Ulquiorra asks.

"Yeah..." Grimmjow says.

"Nnoitra has a particular fondness for a character from the same game as him." Ulquiorra says, sipping his drink.

"Oh? Really? Who?" Grimmjow asks curiously.

"You'll have to ask him." Ulquiorra actually smirks this time, causing Grimmjow to frown.

"We should hurry up and get to class." Grimmjow says, standing up and walking over to the nearby timetable board to check what classes they had that day.

"Right." Ulquiorra replies, following Grimmjow.

"We've got our electives next. What are doing as an elective?" Ulquiorra asks. 

"I'm doing Drama, or something." Grimmjow replies.

"Drama? You like to act?" Ulquiorra says, sounding quite interested. 

"Well, it's fun, so I signed up for it." Grimmjow replies, shrugging his shoulders. 

"Well, if you want the drama room, it's down hallway B. You cant miss it once you're there. It's... decorated nicely." Ulquiorra says.

"Heh, thanks. What's your elective?" Grimmjow asks.

"I do biology." Ulquiorra replies.

"Cutting dead things up? Neat." Grimmjow laughs.

"Sometimes we cut things up. It's mostly study though. Prac is rare in our class." Ulquiorra says.

"That's no fun. Well, whatever. I'm gonna head off to class now. We'll meet up at break?" Grimmjow asks.

"Sure. See you." Ulquiorra waves goodbye to Grimmjow before heading towards his Biology class.

///

Grimmjow decided that Drama at this school was the best fucking subject he had ever chosen to do. His teacher, Urahara, although annoying at times, was super funny and didn't care what his students acted out, said, or did. Even if it was perverted and just plain wrong. For example, today they had to come up with a skit where you had to make the funniest act to the saddest music in half an hour. They were put into groups of three, Grimmjow was in a group with a girl who's hair was blue, her name was Nel. The other person in their group was a large man named Yammy. They thought their skit was pretty good but were beaten by another group, Grimmjow couldn't remember their names though. The rest of his classes that day were uneventful.

///

The bell rang to signal the end of school and as Grimmjow was packing up his bags and chatting lightly to Ulquiorra, someone came up from behind him and slung an arm over his shoulders. Startled, Grimmjow turned around to see the culprit. A boy around his height was standing there. His hair an orange color, with gentle brown eyes. He wasn't a student in Grimmjow's English class, he noted, yet still somewhat familiar. Probably in one of his other classes.

"Hey, I saw your Drama performance before. I was gonna say to you that I really liked it, but you left before I could, dude." He says.

"Oh? Really? Thanks! I uh, want to say the same but I cant really remember many of the other acts." Grimmjow replies.

"Nah, it's fine. You're new, right?" He says.

"Yeah. What's your name, by the way?" Grimmjow asks.

"Oh right, forgot to introduce myself, whoops. My name is Ichigo. Nice to meet you...?" Ichigo says.

"Grimmjow." Grimmjow says, holding out his hand for Ichigo to shake.

Ichigo shakes his hand, "You have many friends here?" He asks.

"Yeah, a few," Grimmjow gestures to Ulquiorra, who's pointedly ignoring both of them. "I only just moved here, so I don't really know anyone at all."

"Yeah..." Ichigo glances to Ulquiorra, "Want me to walk home with you?"

"He's walking with me." Ulquiorra says quickly.

"Oh? Why is that?" Ichigo asks.

"We live near each other. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're leaving. A friend is waiting for us." Ulquiorra replies, grabbing Grimmjow by the arm and dragging him away from Ichigo.

Grimmjow waves a quick goodbye to Ichigo before allowing himself to be dragged away by Ulquiorra. "So what was that about? You seemed kind of pissed." Grimmjow asks.

"Ichigo go and I are not on the greatest of terms at the moment." Ulquiorra replies.

Grimmjow suddenly remembers that Ichigo was the cop who came to his door that morning. He almost laughs out loud about it, realizing that Ichigo probably didn't remember either.

They stay silent all the way down the hall and through the entrance to the school building. Once outside, Grimmjow instantly spots Nnoitra in the distance. He was incredibly noticeable, standing on top of his car in the parking lot in front of the school, waving his arms up and down. Grimmjow wasn't sure whether to laugh or be mortified with embarrassment that he knew that man. Ulquiorra seemed to not really care, making Grimmjow suspect that this was a regular occurrence. The two boys walked over to the man on the car, watching as he jumps down and runs over to them, grinning a grin so wide he looked like a wild animal; or a horse, Grimmjow thinks.

"Guys! Guys! I have an awesome idea!" Nnoitra practically yells.

Grimmjow and Ulquiorra glance at each other with some concern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Powerade  
> \- Powerade is an energy drink, for those who don't know. It's very similar to gatorade and is commonly used by sporty people.  
> ///  
> Just some quick info:  
> 1- When we meet Ichigo a second time, I'd forgotten I had already introduced him (lmao). I kind of saved myself though by adding an extra sentence or so (you know the one).  
> 2- Nnoitra's plan was something I've had planned for a while, even before I had thought up the first chapter.  
> 3- There is a reason that Nnoitra DOES NOT CURRENTLY have an eye-patch. (hint hint)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been decided that Nnoitra is a fucking idiot, and Ulquiorra looks great in scarves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight gore ahead, so if you're squeamish with that stuff, you can feel free to just not read this chapter, or at least, you can read until Ulquiorra gets a phone call from Nnoitra.

Ulquiorra sighs, "What is your plan, Nnoitra? It better not be anything stupid." 

"Don't be such a downer. Of course it's not stupid." Nnoitra replies, giving Ulquiorra a halfhearted glare. 

"So what is it?" Grimmjow asks.

"I think it'd be cool if we all got some tattoos." Nnoitra says, practically jumping up and down at the thought of it.

"Tattoos, huh? That's not such a bad idea." Grimmjow says, smirking.

"Hmm, at least it's not as bad as your last plan." Ulquiorra says.

"OK, even I had to admit my last plan was pretty bad. But this one is awesome. You guys in?" Nnoitra asks.

"Yeah sure. What happened last time? What did you do?" Grimmjow asks curiously.

"Let's just say that Nnoitra's hair was a lot longer before." Ulquiorra replies.

"That doesn't sound so bad." Grimmjow says.

"Yeah, it doesn't sound bad when you say it like that, but there was acid involved. As well as some weird instrument. Musical instrument, too." Nnoitra says, looking away and rubbing his neck.

"Oh." Grimmjow says, thinking of all the possible ways that Nnoitra could have lost his hair due to a musical instrument and acid.

"Anyway, I think it's not such a bad idea that we get tattoos, I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind it. I say we go for it." Ulquiorra says.

"Nice! How about we get them now!?" Nnoitra says excitedly.

Ulquiorra and Grimmjow agree to going with Nnoitra and getting tattoos. They all jump into the car and head off towards the shops. Grimmjow and Ulquiorra text their parents that they'll be home later than normal, Ulquiorra's parents telling him to be super careful and not to talk to strangers; 'For fucks sake...' Grimmjow hears Ulquiorra mutter under his breath.

Eventually they all arrive outside a shop with black painted walls with the name 'Abarai's Tattoos'spray painted on the wall. The place would have looked dodgy if it wasn't so incredibly neat, with it's little stalls around it and toy store next door. It wasn't grungy or dirty, it was clean and neat. They spray paint must have been to add color and make the shop stand out. 

"Abarai? That's Renji's last name, maybe his relatives own this place?" Ulquiorra says.

Grimmjow vaguely remembers a Renji in a few of his classes. 

Nnoitra ran over to the board on the wall of the shop to check what their opening and closing times were. "Hey guys they open in half and hour, roughly. I'm gonna grab some food first, maybe you guys should grab some money from the ATM while you're at it? Tattoos probably aren't cheap."

"Oh yeah I forgot those things cost money." Grimmjow says.

"Everything costs money." Ulquiorra replies.

"He's right, you know. Anyway, I'm gonna head across the road to the pet store." Nnoitra says, walking away from them.

Grimmjow sends a nervous glance in Ulquiorra's direction before replying, "I thought you wanted food?"

"Yeah?" Nnoitra replies, looking at Grimmjow in confusion.

"Nothing..." Grimmjow says, turning to Ulquiorra as Nnoitra continues on his way.

"He's not gonna eat the animals is he?" Grimmjow asks in concern.

Ulquiorra actually laughs out loud, having apparently been holding it in during the whole conversation. "He's g-getting dog food... for his dog." He wheezes.

"OH MY GOD. I feel so stupid now. Holy shit." Grimmjow says, rubbing his face with his hands. 

He looks back to Ulquiorra who was still trying to get over the effects of laughing so hard. There was a small smile on his face as he tries to calm his breathing down a bit. Grimmjow stares at Ulquiorra longer than needed and they make eye contact.

"What?" Ulquiorra asks.

"Nothing, I just thought you should laugh more." Grimmjow replies.

"I laugh all the time, what are you talking about?" Ulquiorra says.

"You never laugh. That's the first time I've seen it. You should do it more often, it's nice." Grimmjow says, smirking lightly.

"Are you...flirting with me?" Ulquiorra asks slowly.

"Hm? No, I was just saying it because that's what I thought." Grimmjow replies.

"Oh." Ulquiorra replies, "Have you thought about what tattoo you would like to get?" 

"Hmm, maybe something around my eyes?" Grimmjow says.

"That will stand out." Ulquiorra says, "The school wont like it but, whatever, we're so close to graduation anyway. I say go for it." 

"Cool. What about you?" Grimmjow asks.

"Hmm, probably something on my face. I'm feeling kind of rebellious, in a way." Ulquiorra admits. 

Ah, teenage rebellion. Such a glorious thing, Grimmjow thinks.

"I wonder what Nnoitra wants..." Grimmjow muses to himself.

"He would probably want something easily concealed yet in plain sight, if that makes sense." Ulquiorra says, looking around at the rows of shops surrounding them, "I think we should actually get some money out, we dont know if they'll take a card." 

"Yeah that's true." Grimmjow replies.

The two of them walk around the shops looking for one of those machines that you can take money out of. They finally found it located in a small convenience store beside the grocery store. They walk inside and get their money, Ulquiorra stops to buy a drink for himself so Grimmjow decides to do the same. As they leave the store they see Nnoitra waiting outside the Tattoo parlor, the dog food wasn't with him so Grimmjow assumed he'd put it into the car. 

"Have you guys decided what tats you want?" Nnoitra asks.

"Yeah, pretty much. Well, at least where we'd like them." Grimmjow replies, taking a seat beside Nnoitra on the pavement.

Ulquiorra sits down in front of them, opening the lid of his Pepsi and taking a sip, "I've decided to get something odd. Here, I'll draw it to show you." He says after putting his drink down.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he unlocks it and opens up a small drawing app. It takes him a little under a minute to finish his small drawing of the design he would like. He shows it up for everyone to see. He'd drawn a basic face with eyes nose and a mouth, and then in green he'd drawn what looked like tear marks going down either side of his face starting from below his eyes. 

"That's what you want? It looks cool, albeit kind of emo, but cool." Nnoitra remarks.

"Shut up." Ulquiorra mutters.

"I think it's cool too. Emo, but cool." Grimmjow replies.

"Both of you shut up." Ulquiorra glares at them.

"Oh come on, we're just messin' with ya', it is actually pretty cool, and the color you've chosen there goes with your eyes, honestly," Nnoitra laughs, patting Ulquiorra on the shoulder, "and I'm not gonna say 'no homo' because seriously, you already know who I have a massive fucking crush on. Well... I'f I'm gonna be honest with myself, I think I'm in love with him." 

Ulquiorra smirks lightly, "Yeah, I know you are, it's really obvious. You've known him for so long, too. You and him... you'd be really good together." 

"Hehe, you're right about that." Nnoitra blushes slightly, "What about you, Grimmjow? What tat are you getting?" He asks to change the subject.

"Dunno yet, I'll let the tattooist decide." Grimmjow says.

"Really? Ok then. I think I'm gonna get two tattoos. One over my left eye and one on my tongue." Nnoitra replies.

"On your tongue?!" Grimmjow says, grimacing, knowing how much that one will hurt.

"Yeah. It's gonna be a number." Nnoitra says proudly.

"Why a number?" Ulquiorra asks.

"Because that's how long it took me to realize I was in love with Szay', starting from the time I got a crush on him." Nnoitra says, still proud, but much quieter. 

"That's fucking adorable." Grimmjow says, "I'm gonna get a number tat as well, on my back." 

"What's yours gonna symbolize?" Nnoitra asks.

"The number of times I got into fights in Middle School; and won." Grimmjow smirks proudly, placing a fist over his heart.

"Interesting. How many times did you get into those fights?" Ulquiorra asks.

"8," Grimmjow replies, " But only 6 of those I won." 

"Well, since you guys are going to get numbers, then I might as well do so too." Ulquiorra says, "I think I'll get a 4, because that's how many hours it took to come to terms with my sexuality, and what age I was when my parents took me in. So it works both ways; convenient." 

"Took you in? Were you adopted?" Grimmjow asks.

"Well, yeah. I mean you didn't think my parents conceived me did you?" Ulquiorra says.

"Oh yeah I forgot you had two dads. Whoops, sorry." Grimmjow says, embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it, it was an easy fact to forget when so much has happened since I told you." Ulquiorra says, giving Grimmjow a small smile.

"Hey you guys, what you doin' here?" A voice came from beside them and they all turned to see Renji walking towards then, black coat slung over his shoulder and hair up in it's usual spiky ponytail.

"Hey Renji. We're getting tattoos." Ulquiorra says.

"You guys? Getting tattoos? OK then, follow me. That is, I assume you're going here, right?" Renji says, gesturing to the tattoo parlor they were sitting outside of.

"So it is your shop after all?" Ulquiorra says.

"Yep, all mine. My parents left it to me. Not that I had any complaints, I mean, I'd always wanted to be a tattooist." Renji says, walking up to the door and unlocking it. 

The three boys got up and followed Renji inside. Grimmjow studied his surroundings, looking at the interior of the shop. He was quite impressed at the style; not shabby, but yet not high-class, with the perfect blend of rich dark wood furniture and walls with red furnishings such as carpet and tapestry.

"Nice place you have here." Grimmjow said, continuing to study his surroundings. There were tables and chairs everywhere as well, the place was definitely larger than it looked from outside.

"Well it's gotta be nice, otherwise people wouldn't let a teenager do their tats. That and it's got to feel good to be in since people sometimes wait for hours, or wish to make their own designs for their tattoos. So some people are here all day. Who would like to sit here all day in a boring environment? Certainly not me." Renji explains, walking over to a light switch and turning the lights on. 

"How long do tattoos normally take?" Ulquiorra asks.

"Depends on what design you want. Generally, for larger tattoos, it can take days, meaning multiple visits. Smaller tattoos can take a few hours, and ultra small tattoos maybe half an hour to an hour at least. It all depends on the size and color." Renji says, walking over to the receptionists desk. 

He opens up a drawer and pulls out some blank paper and pencils. Placing that on the desk, he walks over to some filing cabinets behind him and opens them, pulling out specific designs. Once he'd chosen the ones he wanted, he brought them over two the three boys. Placing the designs on a table close by, he spread them out. They were of varying sizes and details. Ones obviously meant to be larger, and designs so simple they had to be smaller ones. 

"As you can see, it really all depends on the design. You can look through these if you want. If you would like to see any other designs, just ask and I can see what I've got. If you wish to design your own, then please feel free to use the paper and pencils I've left over there." Renji explains, going to seat himself behind the receptionists desk.

Nnoitra walked over and grabbed three blank sheets of paper and the pack of pencils. He brings them back over to the Ulquiorra and Grimmjow. They all take a seat and Nnoitra gives them a piece of paper each, placing the pencils on the desk. They all start working on their designs, labeling where they want them and how big.

"This feels like 1st grade all over again." Grimmjow says, laughing a bit and almost messing up his design. 

"Yeah it does." Ulquiorra replies, "It's more than school stuff though."

"So Grimmjow what design did you decide on? Since you're making your own, now." Nnoitra asks, not looking up from his design.

"I dunno what it is, but I think it looks cool." Grimmjow replies, holding up his sheet of paper for Nnoitra to see.

"Looks weird. Where's that supposed to go?" Nnoitra replies, frowning.

"Under my eyes. I think i might make it a green-ish blue color. Maybe; I'm still kind of deciding on what color I want it to be." Grimmjow explains. 

"Well, I've finished mine." Nnoitra says proudly, holding up his new design for all to see.

"Dude that looks really cool. Is it a like a rose or something?" Grimmjow replies in awe, Ulquiorra looks up and seems intrigued with this new design as well.

"It's a pink rose, beautiful yet painful because of the thorns. Reminds me Szayel." Nnoitra says, blushing lightly. 

"That's pretty cute, dude." Grimmjow says, smirking.

"Shut up." Nnoitra replies, looking away and lowering his design. 

With all their designs finished and color coded, they gathered up everything and returned it to the desk where they were into one of the back rooms for Renji to start on tattoo preparations. Ulquiorra opted to go first for his tattoo, Grimmjow grabbed second place and Nnoitra was forced to go last. Ulquiorra entered the tattooing room, Grimmjow and Nnoitra waited outside for him to finish. It didn't take as long as they expected, maybe only 40-50 minutes.

Grimmjow was next to go in, he took a little longer than Ulquiorra, even though his tattoo was smaller, because of the tricky design of it; Ulquiorra's was fairly simple. When he came back out of the room, he was holding a wet cloth over his eyes, muttering about how it hurt more than he thought it would. Seeing Grimmjow about to trip over a chair, Ulquiorra quickly guided him to instead sit down on it. 

Nnoitra was last to go in. He was taking a very long time, as expected since his design was the hardest to do.

"Wanna go for a walk around and see what shops they've got around here?" Grimmjow asks, knowing Ulquiorra would probably know the area well anyway.

"Sure, I guess. You haven't been here before so I can show you around." Ulquiorra replies. 

The two of them leave the tattoo parlor and turn left, deciding to head towards the main shopping section, the multiple leveled building. The walked around a bit, looking for a place of interest. They found a large second hand shop, where people leave their unwanted and not needed items. It looked like an interesting place to check out, so Grimmjow pulled Ulquiorra over to it.

"Let's check out this place. It might have some good loot in it." Grimmjow says, smiling a child who just got candy. 

"They do have some interesting things here sometimes." Ulquiorra replied, allowing himself to be pulled through the automatic doors of the shop.

Grimmjow ran over to hat stand where a large black hat covered in dark colored feathers sticking out of it, it's rim was wide and went around the whole hat. It looked quite stylish. A thought came to Grimmjow and he motioned for Ulquiorra to come over to where he was holding the hat. Ulquiorra walked over to him only to have the hat placed on his head.

"What are you doing?" Ulquiorra asked curiously as Grimmjow walked over to the stand nearby were some scarves were hanging.

"These suit you." Grimmjow says as he drapes a black scarf around Ulquiorra's neck.

"Thanks?" Ulquiorra furrows his brows in confusion.

Grimmjow thinks for a moment before taking the hat off and leaving the scarf on, "However, you look better without the hat." 

"Ok..." Ulquiorra isn't sure how to reply to Grimmjow.

"Let's buy it, the scarf." Grimmjow says, grinning.

"I cant, I just spent all my money before." Ulquiorra says. Well, it is a nice scarf, he thinks.

"I'll buy it for you." Grimmjow says quickly.

"Oh no, you don't need to do that." Ulquiorra replies hurriedly, the thought of someone else buying something for him seemed preposterous, money should be spent on ones self and not on others.

"No really, it's fine! Besides, I'm the one who thinks it looks really good on you." Grimmjow says, unwrapping the scarf from around Ulquiorra's neck.

"... You don't have to buy it for me..." Ulquiorra says quietly.

"But I'm going to and you cant stop me." Grimmjow smirks, heading over to the cashier.

Ulquiorra stays silent as Grimmjow walks over and starts paying the cashier for the scarf, figuring it would be a futile effort to try and change Grimmjow's mind about buying him the scarf. Grimmjow finished paying and the two of them leave the shop, not bothering to go and check out the rest of the items being sold there. 

Grimmjow stops and turns to Ulquiorra, reaching into the plastic shopping bag and pulling out the scarf. Reaching over to Ulquiorra, Grimmjow wraps the woolen black scarf around the other males neck as he had done in the shop. He smirks and pulls back to look at his work.

"It really does suit you, you know? I know I said it before, but I really mean it. With your black hair added to it, it really makes your eyes stand out; and now that you have that tattoo it makes them stand out even more." Grimmjow says, looking over Ulquiorra.

"You know, you sound like you have a crush on me..." Ulquiorra smirks lightly as Grimmjow frowns.

"I dont have a crush on you, but you are really pretty." Grimmjow replies, not at all embarrassed.

"Oh... thank you." Ulquiorra replies, he suddenly felt lighter, like he was floating on air for a second, "You can say embarrassing things so easily. I'd never have the courage to say something like that to someone." 

"Really? I've never been afraid to just come right out and say something. Obviously I sometimes get embarrassed though. I also know when not to say things." Grimmjow explains, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck.

"I see. Well...I'm quite the opposite. I hardly ever say anything. When I want to say something, I usually overthink the consequences of doing so and then by the time I've gained enough mental preparation to say the thing, the time for it has passed and I no longer can; or the subject had been changed." Ulquiorra replies.

"Damn, that sucks." Grimmjow says, trying to find more words to say to Ulquiorra.

Ulquiorra just shrugs, "It's annoying, but I've gotten used to it."

Just then Ulquiorra's phone rang from deep inside his pocket, frowning, he pulled it out to check the number, praying it was one of his fathers. When he saw it was Nnoitra's number he went to answer it.

"It's Nnoitra," He whispers to Grimmjow before answering the phone,"Hello?"

There's silence for a minute before Ulquiorra speaks up, "How the fuck did you do that?!...Yes, I know you explained it, but still... Oh my God... Yes, yes we'll come get you... No, I'll drive and you will sit in the back seat... You have to sit there because I dont want look at your face while I drive your stupid ass to the hospital... I don't care if it's your car or not, this is not the time to argue about where in the car has the best fucking view... Listen, stop talking; I'm hanging up, go meet us by the car and we will be there in a minute." Ulquiorra slams the disconnect call button as hard as he can sighing loudly and rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"What the fuck was all that?" Grimmjow says in alarm.

"Nnoitra had a little accident during getting his tattoo done." Ulquiorra explains vaguely.

"How the fuck did he do that?" Grimmjow asks, they start to head back towards the car.

"He said as Renji was about to start on his SECOND tattoo, yes, second, before you ask, he got a text from Szayel. Of course, his lovesick ass had to sit up as fast he could to get his phone out his pocket, the dumb fuck. Now he's got the tattoo needle stuck in his eye." Ulquiorra growls in annoyance.

"Holy shit. I'd ask if he was fine, but he clearly is. Maybe not his brain, though." Grimmjow replies, not sure whether to laugh or be worried about his friend.

"Dumb shit." Ulquiorra mutters.

"I've never heard you swear so much." Grimmjow says.

"You'd be surprised what asocial people can do when under stress." Ulquiorra replies, "We're like cornered rats." 

"I never took you for the asocial type." Grimmjow says.

"You've hardly known me for longer than a few days." Ulquiorra points out.

"Oh yeah. I keep forgetting we only met recently! It feels like we've been friends for ages." Grimmjow says.

"Yeah, I suppose so." Ulquiorra replies.

They finally make it back to the car where Renji appeared to be holding a large towel over the side of Nnoitra's head. Renji looked really pissed off while Nnoitra seemed to be in pain, yet still laughing and chatting casually. Ulquiorra walks over to the car and instantly starts lecturing Nnoitra on how much of an idiot he was.

"Thanks Renji, we can take it from here." Ulquiorra says exasperatedly. 

"Good, there's blood all over my work station. He's lucky I have no customers until 10. Well, no customers with bookings, anyway. Who knows who could turn up." Renji says, glaring at Nnoitra.

"I apologize for the trouble my imbecile of a friend has caused." Ulquiorra says, giving a polite bow. 

"Just get him to the hospital. One more thing, take care of your tattoos for the first few months. People think they're fine after a few weeks, and they get infected and say I did bad job. Do your research, guys. Keep them clean." Renji says before quickly jogging back to his shop.

Ulquiorra motions for Grimmjow to sit beside Nnoitra and help him keep the towel on his wound while Ulquiorra jumps into the front of the car to start up the engine. There was blood all down the front of Nnoitra's white hooded jacket, making Grimmjow wonder just how bad the wound was. He felt sick thinking about it all, but since he couldn't actually see the wound his stomach didn't rebel that bad.

"Nnoitra, pass me your phone." Ulquiorra says, reaching his hand into the back seat for Nnoitra to dump his phone into the waiting hands.

"Shouldn't text and drive, dude. Dangerous." Nnoitra says, laughing lightly.

"I'm not texting, I'm calling; and like you're one to talk. Shouldn't text and jump into a fucking needle." Ulquiorra counters, smirking inwardly as Nnoitra just scoffs and doesn't reply.

Ulquiorra quickly dialed a number into the phone, his eyes surprisingly never leaving the road even once. He held the phone to his ear and waited for the other person to pick up. Once he got a hold of the person on the other end, he immediately started talking.

"Hey, meet us at the hospital near Starbucks in Karakura town... No, I don't have time to explain it to you... It doesn't matter why I have his phone... No, he's not alright, he's a fucking idiot, hurry up and just get there, ok? Bye." Ulquiorra hits the end call button and chucks the phone into the back of the car without a care, hitting Grimmjow in the head.

"Ow! Dude, not cool. Watch where you throw that thing!" Grimmjow says, frowning.

"Sorry, just annoyed." Ulquiorra mutters.

"Say sorry to me as well, you could have broken my phone." Nnoitra whines.

"Shouldn't you be in pain or something?" Ulquiorra spits back.

"I AM in pain, just so you know. Talking takes my mind away from it. Makes me concentrate on something other than, you know, my missing goddamn eye?" Nnoitra replies.

Ulquiorra hits the brakes suddenly, lurching everyone forward in their seats, before turning around to stare at Nnoitra in shock.

"You LOST your eye!?" Ulquiorra shrieks. 

Grimmjow thinks he's going to hurl all of a sudden as the realization hits him about how there's so much blood when it was only a 'needle to the eye'. He fights to hold back his lurching stomach so that he doesn't puke everywhere and seem rude to his new friends.

"Well, where the hell is your eye?! You can't have just.... chucked it out or something, I mean surely you're not that stupid?" Ulquiorra asks, there was cars honking their horns at them for being in the middle of the road.

"No, I'm not that stupid, jeez." Nnoitra says as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a slightly mangled miniature white balloon, and holds it up for Ulquiorra to see.

That was the final straw for Grimmjow as he jumps from the and straight onto the road, vomiting all over the place. A few concerned citizens exited their cars and came running over to Grimmjow to see if he was ok. One or two looked into the car to see if everything was alright, only to see the eye, the blood and a grinning Nnoitra with a horrified Ulquiorra looking like he was ready to punch the shit out of his eyeless friend.

An orange haired girl helped Grimmjow up, and he had to hold himself back from not pushing her away out of embarrassment at throwing up in front of everyone. He wiped his mouth clean of remaining puke and leaned against the side of the car in order to catch his breath.

"What happened here?" The orange haired girl asked in concern, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Well do you have anything for a sore throat? Sore stomach? My eyes hurt too." Grimmjow says, "Also my friend is an idiot. A really big idiot." 

"Um, no I don't have anything like that with me, but I would have if you'd seen me yesterday! I'm a doctor, you see." She explains, "Pity I didn't have work today though, otherwise I would have had all my supplies." 

"Well, too bad you don't have them with you." Grimmjow replies.

Ulquiorra jumps out of the car, slamming the door hard behind him and walking over to Grimmjow, "Hey, are you ok?" He asks softly.

"Yeah, just a little sick in the stomach. I can't believe he had that thing in his pocket; not to mention on the same side I was sitting!" Grimmjow growls.

"You can ride in the front of the car, I don't care if he dies from blood loss at this point. But we gotta go, right now. I don't think all these cars we're holding up are going to be patient for much longer." Ulquiorra replies, tugging lightly the sleeve of Grimmjow's jacket.

"Thanks for offering to help. I guess I'll be on my way." Grimmjow mutters to the girl with the orange hair as he walks back to the car, being careful to not look in Nnoitra's direction. 

Ulquiorra steps on the gas and they finally get back to going on their way to the hospital. 

Along the way, Nnoitra actually had the nerve to ask if they could stop for some food, to which his reply was silence and Ulquiorra speeding up. Finally they made it to Karakura town hospital. When they pulled into the parking area they found a free parking spot after a few minutes of hard searching. Nnoitra's phone beeps to say he's got a message.

Picking up his phone to check the message, Nnoitra sits up straight and says, "Szay says he's here? Was that who you called? Why did you call him? He can't see me without my eye." Nnoitra panics.

"I called him because you would panic, and he is the best at calming you down. Tell him we're the B section of the parking area, he'll know which car is ours." Ulquiorra replies.

"What do you mean I'm going to panic?" Nnoitra just starts panicking more at the thought that he has something other than Szayel seeing his lack of left eye to panic over. 

"You'll see, but I'm surprised you haven't started panicking already." Ulquiorra muses.

"What's going on?" Grimmjow asks.

"He's got a huge fear of operations." Ulquiorra explains, knowing full well Nnoitra can hear every word he says.

"I'm going to have an operation!?" Nnoitra shrieks, horrified at the thought. 

"Obviously. I mean, you cant just go running around with your eye like that. If they're even going to have an attempt at fixing your damned face, then you're going straight on the operating table. A blood transfusion may be needed as well if you keep losing all that blood." Ulquiorra explains calmly.

"FUCK. FUCK, NO I CANT. I HATE OPERATIONS." Nnoitra is really freaking out now.

A knock on the window shows that Szayel had arrived, finally. Grimmjow turns to look at him. He had pink hair down to his shoulders and a pair of odd thick rimmed white glasses, he appeared to be in a lab coat. Grimmjow realized he probably came here straight from work. 

Szayel opens the door closest to Nnoitra and leans in to tap his shoulder, "Dude, it's me." 

Nnoitra stops panicking for a moment, "They said I have to have an operation!" He says quickly.

"You're going to be ok. What happened? Tell me everything." Szayel asks, sliding into the car to sit beside Nnoitra.

"Um, I slipped while getting a tattoo and I kinda slipped INTO the needle and gouged out my eye." Nnoitra explains, leaving out some details.

Szayel didn't look too convinced but decided not to pester Nnoitra for the truth, "I see. Come on, let's get you insi- is that your eye!?" He points to the item in Nnoitra's hand.

"Huh? Oh, haha yeah it is. Like it?" Nnoitra says, dangling the mangled eye up the same way one would hold a condom. 

"It looks great, can I have it? I mean, there's no way could sew that back into you." Szayel says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a zip-lock bag.

"Sure, I don't see why not." Nnoitra says, placing the eye into the bag.

Grimmjow grimaces without actually looking at the situation, and leans over to Ulquiorra, "They're actually perfect for each other..." He whispers.

Ulquiorra nods in reply, "I agree." 

Nnoitra Szayel clamber out of the car, keeping the towel around Nnoitra's wound. Szayel helps him into the ER and up to the front desk. 

"My friend just lost his eye and is bleeding everywhere, he may need to be operated on, but I'm not sure because I haven't seen how bad the wound is yet, but I think he's going to need immediate attention because of the amount of blood he has lost." Szayel explains, rather calmly for someone who's friend is dripping blood into someone's handbag while the owner is sleeping. 

"OK, bring him through the doors to the left, and ask for Dr. Kurosaki." The man behind the reception says, pointing towards the door.

"Thank you." Szayel says before grabbing Nnoitra by the wrist and pulling him through the white double doors and up to the next reception area. 

That was the last Grimmjow and Ulquiorra saw of Nnoitra for that day, because as soon as Nnoitra had gone with Szayel, they'd taken his car to use to get themselves home. The way back had been relatively silent apart from a few bits of small talk here and there. Eventually they reached their houses and parked outside of Grimmjow's. 

"See you tomorrow." Ulquiorra says, climbing out of the car.

"Yeah, see you." Grimmjow replies, doing the same. 

They both go their separate ways and head back into their own homes. Grimmjow wondered what his mother would think of his tattoo. There was no point in hiding it from her since it was on his face. The one on his side wasn't finished yet, none of his friends ones were either. They were just traced so they could be filled in later on. They'll have to go back tomorrow or the day after to have their tattoos finished. 

Well there's no point in worrying over it at the moment, Grimmjow thinks. It was already getting late and he was hungry after all of the days events. Grabbing some toast, Grimmjow eats it quickly and heads to the bathroom to have a shower, grimacing as the hot water makes his tattoos sting. Getting out of the shower and drying himself off, Grimmjow finally crashes onto the bed and tries to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, such an early update. I'm happy with this, haha. I set up a sketch blog on Tumblr if you'd like to check that out, the name is Nnoiszay ((I cant believe that the url wasn't taken!)), if you want my Bleach Tumblr, it's Nnoitraporro (wasnt taken either!! :D)   
> Thank you guys for reading this!!   
> Things to look forward to in the next chapter (no spoilers though):  
> \- Grimmjow realizing that 'holy shit my friend is really cute in scarves'   
> -Nnoitra's fancy new eye-patch


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Szayel might need help and Ulquiorra is angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere near the beginning of this chapter, a few sentences I did not write due to a sprained wrist, so credit goes to my friend Jas for those few sentences (thanks buddy pal amigo son brethren).
> 
> Not really any warnings needed for this chapter, I guess? Oh wait: Sexual references! Like always, I guess.

As he was getting ready for school, Ulquiorra eyes the scarf Grimmjow bought him; wondering if he should wear it to school today or not. Grimmjow had said that he looked good in it, so why not? It was a little bit chilly today anyway. Grabbing the scarf off the back of the chair, Ulquiorra wraps it around himself and grabs his shoulder bag and heads down the stairs to the kitchen.

"You look good in that scarf, you should wear it more often." A soft voice comes from behind the open doors of the fridge.

"So I've been told." Ulquiorra replies, grabbing a cup from the shelf and pouring himself some Pepsi.

"Gin, get out of the fridge, I can hear you raiding my strawberries again." Another voice says as a man with wavy brown hair comes around the corner.

With an annoyed grunt, Gin closed the fridge and went to sit at the table with his cup of coffee.

"Where'd you get that scarf? It looks nice." The man says, eyeing Ulquiorra's new look. 

"A friend gave it to me." Ulquiorra replies, quickly finishing the last of the Pepsi in his cup.

"Nnoitra?" The brown haired man asks.

"Grimmjow." Ulquiorra says.

"Oh, Aizen, isn't that the boy he likes?" Gin says teasingly. 

"I believe so." Aizen replies, smiling.

"I don't fancy him; he's just a friend, please don't bring romance into this." Ulquiorra spits. 

"Ooh, getting a bit feisty, aren't you? Don't worry, we won't tease you any longer." Aizen laughs lightly.

"Oh but he bought you a scarf, surely he likes you at least!" Gin smirks as Ulquiorra narrows his eyes.

"He doesn't have any romantic interest at the moment, and certainly not in me. Don't go getting your hopes up." Ulquiorra replies. 

"Sure, sure. But if he confesses to you, tell us first! We absolutely MUST be the first to hear!" Gin says.

"Whatever, I'm going now. Goodbye." Ulquiorra waves goodbye to his parents as he walks out of the door. 

As soon as he steps out the door he runs into Grimmjow, almost knocking the both of them over. A hand on his shoulder steadies them both from actually tripping. 

"You ok? I was about to knock but you came rushing out." Grimmjow asks him. 

Ulquiorra internally panics for a few seconds before ultimately deciding Grimmjow probably didn't hear the conversation that went on inside of the house just moments before. 

"Yeah I'm fine, just a bit flustered, I guess." He replies, they start walking to school.

"Oh, that's goo- hey you're wearing the scarf I got you! Cool." Grimmjow says, breaking into a grin. 

"Yeah, I am. It's nice so I thought I'd wear it." Ulquiorra replies. 

Grimmjow suddenly turns his head away before replying, "I'm glad you like it." 

Ulquiorra stays silent, staring at Grimmjow's strange behavior. He decides not to question it too much and instead tries to change the subject, "So do you think Nnoitra's okay? I haven't heard from him since last night." 

Grimmjow turns back, "Oh, I guess he's fine. I mean you would have heard from Szayel if he'd not been fine." 

"You have a point." Ulquiorra nods, "Do your tattoos still hurt? Because mine are hurting heaps, my eyes are aching!"

"Hell yeah mine hurt. Hurts like a bitch. Didn't Nnoitra get a tattoo on his tongue as well? Shit, that must've hurt heaps." Grimmjow says, face scrunching up at the thought of the pain of a tongue tattoo.

"Actually, tongue tattoos don't hurt, and they heal faster as well. They feel tingly and numb, and might hurt after a day or two but not while you're having them done. As for healing time, it only takes a few weeks in comparison to normal tattoos that can take up to 50 days to heal." Ulquiorra explains. 

"You sure do know a lot about tattoos." Grimmjow replies.

"Well, a few years ago I wanted to be a tattooist, but not now. Anyway, I just researched it heaps at the time." He says, shrugging.

"So you're trying to tell me that tongue tattoos don't hurt? I'm not falling for that, you're crazy." Grimmjow laughs.

"I'm serious! They don't hurt!" Ulquiorra retorts. 

"Whatever. I still don't believe you." Grimmjow says, "Anyway, why don't you want to be a tattoo artist anymore?"

"I can't draw." Ulquiorra replies.

"Anyone can draw, dude. What's the real reason?" Grimmjow says.

"Well it's true that anyone can draw, but not everyone has skill in drawing. For some people, drawing just comes naturally, but most of the time it's through sheer hard effort and practice. When one says 'I can't draw', they dont mean 'I have not got the ability to put pencil to paper and move it' they mean, 'I do not have any artistic ability no matter how much I have practiced throughout my life'. I feel sorry for people like that because no matter how much they draw and draw and have done so for years, they believe they have not reached an artistic level of ability, which may or may not be true. Many great artists say their work is bad and that they can't draw, yet they are showered with love for their art. I understand they are insecure about their art, but it's different to other people saying that 'their art is bad and that they can't draw' because those other people don't get showered with love for their art, and they may not even get attention at all, whether they can draw or not." Ulquiorra pauses to take a few breaths before continuing.

"To become a tattoo artist requires a huge amount of skill in drawing, and absolutely no mistakes can be made or it is a loss in money and perhaps you could even be sued. I say I can't draw because I do not have the skill required to become a tattooist, and nor will I ever have that skill. That, Grimmjow, is the reason I say I cant draw and the reason I cannot become a tattooist." Ulquiorra finally finishes, looking up to see Grimmjow's slightly bewildered face. 

"You sure are good at explaining things. I think that's the most I've ever heard you talk." Grimmjow exclaims.

"Yes, well, I am sorry about that. I have a habit of going into detail every now and again." Ulquiorra mutters.

"Nah, don't worry about it, I was just a little shocked, that's all." Grimmjow says, "Maybe a bit impressed as well."

"Impressed?" Ulquiorra asks.

"Yeah. I would never have been able to say all that in such detail." Grimmjow replies, grinning.

"Oh. Thank you." Ulquiorra says. 

The two boys continued on their way to school, chatting idly about small things and hobbies. The day was normal and classes went smoothly, even though a whole heap of assignments got pushed onto them. The last two periods of the day Ulquiorra and Grimmjow were separated into different classes for different subjects. When the bell rang to signal the end of school hours the two boys met up near the Drama classroom. 

"Hey, so how was class?" Grimmjow asks, knowing Ulquiorra just had art. 

"It was fine. I got an assignment where I have to draw something odd or strange. Shouldn't be too hard." Ulquiorra replies.

"Sounds fun." Grimmjow laughs. 

Just then Ulquiorra's phone gets a message and he goes to check it. Frowning, Ulquiorra reads the message quickly before looking up at Grimmjow, "It's Szayel, he said he's going to pick us up and that he is waiting across the road right now." 

"What the fuck? Why's he here to get us?" Grimmjow frowns. 

"He didn't say, but I'm guessing it's something to do with Nnoitra." Ulquiorra replies slowly.

The two boys walk out the school door and across the road to where Szayel leaned against his small blue car, flipping through his phone. 

"Hey, what's up?" Ulquiorra says, going to dump his bag into the back of Szayel's car.

"Not much really, just Nnoitra wouldn't quit bugging me until I took to you guys to my home to show you his new eye patch." Szayel says in a bored voice. 

"He's at your place?" Grimmjow asks.

"Yeah, didn't want to inconvenience his folks. Or something like that." Szayel replies, shrugging.

"So is he doing okay?" Grimmjow asks. 

Szayel turns to look at Grimmjow, eyeing him up and down. "Yeah, he's fine. Aren't you the guy who dated my brother?" 

Grimmjow frowns, "I was told you didn't care, so why are you asking?" 

"I may not care, but that didn't mean I wasn't even the slightest bit interested. Besides, when I was told I wasn't really caught at the greatest of moments so I was in a bad mood." Szayel explains. 

"You're always in a bad mood, though." Ulquiorra replies. 

"I am not!" Szayel retorts. 

"Name one time this week you weren't in a bad mood." Ulquiorra says. 

"..." Szayel pauses to think for a bit, "Ok, I was in a good mood when I got a pay raise at work yesterday." 

"Fine, whatever. You're mostly in a bad mood." Ulquiorra replies. 

"Shut up. Anyway let's get going. I'm sick of waiting here, in High School Hell, when I could be doing other things with my wasted time." Szayel says, pushing himself off the car and walking around to the drivers side.

"What? Like Nnoitra?" Ulquiorra says, trying hard to hide the small smirk that was threatening to show. 

"No, not like Nnoitra. I wouldn't fuck him." Szayel snaps, glaring at them. 

Ulquiorra shut up and turned to look out the window. He felt his heart shatter a little bit and suddenly felt very sorry for Nnoitra. Poor Nnoitra must be having it hard, Ulquiorra thinks to himself, Szayel is such an ass.

The rest of the car trip to Szayel's house was silent, not even a single word had been spoken. Once they arrived they all got out of the car and left their bags and stuff in the trunk and clambered up the steep stone steps to the front door of Szayel's home. Szayel unlocked the door and everyone went inside to find Nnoitra laying lazily across a long white leather couch in front of large flat screen TV hung nicely on the wall above what appeared to be a gas fireplace. Grimmjow's first thoughts were 'wow, this guys rich'. 

Nnoitra looked up from where he lay, "Hey guys! Check out my new eye-patch, it's pretty neat, huh?" 

Ulquiorra and Grimmjow walk over to look at the eye patch. It was incredibly large for an eye patch and looked incredibly similar to a smaller version of a kunai sheath except flat. It was white with a black trim and a slip on strap going around the forehead. It was certainly very noticeable and not at all concealed. 

"It's pretty big." Grimmjow comments. 

"It looks interesting..." Ulquiorra says, still staring at it. 

"I asked them for the most unpopular eye patch they had, and it was this one. So I had to have it, of course." Nnoitra says proudly.

Szayel came over and sat down beside Nnoitra, leaning back against the head rest of the couch. "Now that you've all seen his eye patch, you have 10 minutes to get out of my house." He says. 

"You're in a bad mood again." Ulquiorra snaps.

"So what if I am?" Szayel replies coolly. 

"Can I talk to you in private, please? Now?" Ulquiorra says. 

"Fine." He Szayel replies, standing up off the couch and heading towards the bathroom, "Make it quick." 

Ulquiorra follows him, not caring about the curious looks Nnoitra and Grimmjow were giving them. 

Ulquiorra sighs, "Is something wrong?" He says, but in a lighter tone than before. 

"No! It's not fine! Nothing is ever really fine, is it?" Szayel says, leaning against the wash basin. 

"Please tell me what's wrong, I can try and help. You're upset over something." Ulquiorra says. 

Szayel groans, "I've had a shitty fucking week, okay? My experiments kept failing, and that made me nearly get fired, that pay raise I got? Yeah, I only got that because my boss wanted me to suck his dick, and you know what? I fucking did it because I needed the money. He was going to fire me because all my experiments went wrong this week. I need my goddamn job! What next? My best fucking friend LOSES his eye and then I get told I have to come and help him in the E.R or some shit, and you know what happens? I get FIRED because I had to come get him. I got FIRED for my best friend! Yes, he's worth getting fired for, but-" Szayel get's cut off mid-sentence as the door to the bathroom is opened. 

"Why the fuck didn't you say anything to me!? Why didn't you say you got fired!? Why didn't you tell me it was my fault!?" Nnoitra says, he looked upset. 

"I didn't want to worry you!" Szayel says, looking pained. 

"But you still should have said something! That job, that could never be replaced! It's my fault you lost your job, I have to do something to make it up to you." Nnoitra says. 

Szayel walks forward and puts a hand on Nnoitra's shoulder, "Dude, you don't have to do anything. It's not fully your fault, either. It's both of our faults. I just snapped because I'm stressed!"

"Both of our faults? No, it was just me, and I have to do something..." Nnoitra says. 

"It was both of our faults. I texted you, you were an idiot and moved during a goddamn eye tattoo! You were an idiot, and I had bad timing. It was both our faults, so shut up and dont take full responsibility, okay?" Szayel shouts. 

Nnoitra's face scrunches up and he leans down to rest his head against Szayel's shoulder, "I'm so sorry." 

"Don't apologize," Szayel replies, "Go back to the couch a lie down, your head still hurts, doesn't it?" 

"Yeah, a little..." Nnoitra replies, standing back up straight. 

"I guess Grimmjow and I will go, then. Don't worry about driving us, we'll just catch the bus." Ulquiorra says, leaving Nnoitra and Szayel on their own, he felt like they wanted to do some more talking. 

Szayel nodded, Ulquiorra and Grimmjow said their farewells, grabbed their bags from the car, and walked outside towards the bus stop. They stood in silence for a minute, not sure what to say to each other. Eventually, Grimmjow seems to tire of the silence and attempts to strike up a conversation. 

"Will he be okay?" Grimmjow asks. 

Ulquiorra shrugs. "Dunno. I dont think he'll be alright, but he's sure as hell not going to accept our help. He never asks for help, even when he clearly needs it." 

"Will he listen to Nnoitra? Maybe he can help us?" Grimmjow asks. 

"Grimmjow, I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see how everything goes, I guess." Ulquiorra replies, just as the bus pulls up to allow them on. 

They pay the bus driver the fare and quickly sit down in a seat near the back of the bus. As they get themselves comfortable for the trip home, Grimmjow leans back in the seat and sighs.

"Surely there is something we can do. We can't just... ignore this, it's not right." Grimmjow says.

"It might not seem the right thing to do, but Szayel doesn't want us to interfere, and so we cant. It's not our business, even if we are friends to a certain degree." Ulquiorra explains, his backpack resting on his lap. 

"To a certain degree? What's that supposed to mean? That's he's only your friend sometimes?" Grimmjow asks, frowning down at Ulquiorra. 

"No it's just... Szayel doesn't let anyone control him, and he get's angry or mad when people try to help or make suggestions for him because he believes that he can do everything on his own. It's like a superiority complex that's almost to the point of obsessing over absolutely everything. Want to make him a cup of tea? He'll tell you to 'fuck off' and that he can 'make tea himself'. He wont let anyone do anything for him, like I said. It causes lot's of fights, but he always forgives eventually. But with Nnoitra, he doesn't mind. He likes to help Nnoitra and let's Nnoitra do some things for him. Not all, but some." Ulquiorra pauses to think a bit.

"He doesn't mind helping people," He continues, "But when you want to do the same, it's out of the question." 

"That does sound quite like a superiority complex, to me." Grimmjow replies, "It sounds like he thinks he is too perfect for help." 

"That's probably the case, you know. He worked so well at his job because he believed that he could do it. He's good at everything he does because he worked hard for it without a trace of doubt that he couldn't do it. He got where he was because of that 'better than you' personality. As for the reasons he was fired? Because he fucking cares about other's as well, even if he doesn't like to admit it, or even tries to hide it." Ulquiorra continues.

"Cares about others? I might not know him that well, but it seems that he really only cares about Nnoitra and, I don't know, maybe like three other people? It seems his range of 'caring' only extends to some people." Grimmjow says.

"Well that's what I meant, he only cares for some people, but he hates to admit that to anyone, even though it's seen clearly in his actions. If he doesn't like someone, it becomes very obvious. I didn't say he cared about 'everyone' I said he cared about 'others', never did i specify how many 'others' actually was." Ulquiorra says. 

"Oh yeah. Okay, sorry. Who would be the others he cares for though?" Grimmjow asks.

"Hmm, probably his mother, maybe me? I'm not really sure, but we knew each other when we were younger, so perhaps he does. Nnoitra, obviously. He said once that he thought that Nnoitra's little friend from work was interesting, so maybe him too? I can't be sure, since Szayel's a very closed off kind of person." Ulquiorra replies. 

"Huh. I wonder if him and I will ever become good friends like you and I?" Grimmjow asks, glancing at Ulquiorra.

"No offence, but probably not." Ulquiorra says, looking out the window. 

"What? Why not?" Grimmjow asks, frowning. 

"Because you dated his brother, obviously." Ulquiorra replies.

"Oh yeah..." Grimmjow says, staying quiet after that.

Eventually the bus pulls to a stop outside Grimmjow and Ulquiorra's street. it was still early afternoon, since they didn't stay long at Szayel's. The bus didn't go down their road, but only passes it by on the main road. The doors of the bus swing open and Ulquiorra jumps out, Grimmjow following suit but his knees buckle and he falls flat onto his stomach, splayed out on the ground as if it was snow. One unknown kid on the bus laughing hysterically as his mother tries to shush him. 

Oh that was cute, Ulquiorra thinks, as the bus driver asks if Grimmjow is okay. 

"Yeah, I'm fine." Grimmjow grumbles as he picks himself back up and brushes the dirt from his clothes as the bus driver nods and drives away.

"Ugh, my whole body aches, thanks for asking." Grimmjow laughs, as he brushes some dust from his shoulder. 

"Well you didn't die, did you?" Ulquiorra replies mockingly. 

"But I could have. What if when I fell, I hit my head so hard I fell into a coma and never woke up? Would you be the person to decide to pull the plug?" Grimmjow grins.

"You didn't fall very hard." Ulquiorra says.

"But I fell onto the ground and could have died. What would my mother say? Actually, don't answer that." Grimmjow frowns, "Well, I'm bored. What should we do?" 

"Let's go to my place. You can stay the night if you want." Ulquiorra asks. 

"Sure, what would we do?" Grimmjow asks as he picks his bag up and they start heading down the street to their houses.

"Watch movies, I guess. Play some games." Ulquiorra replies. 

"Sounds fun. Hey, we have school tomorrow, and it's sports day." Grimmjow says, "Should I grab my sports uniform to bring over while I grab my pajamas?" 

"Nah, it's fine. Sport day is optional for seniors at our school. We dont have to go." Ulquiorra replies, "That's why I'm offering if you'd like to stay for the night." 

"Oh? Shit, that's cool. At my old school we had to go to sport days no matter." Grimmjow says.

"You had to go? That must have sucked." Ulquiorra says.

"Nah, it was my favorite day of the week. Our sports group got to travel an hour away by bus just to get to the sports venue. Our teacher was also pretty lenient and we could have breaks at the cafe nearby. She'd even shout us free ice-cream." Grimmjow smiles. 

"That does sound pretty nice. What sport were you? Soccer? Basketball?" Ulquiorra asks. 

"Um, actually I was in the badminton group. That shit's fun. It's like tennis but with less running to do." Grimmjow explains. 

"Badminton? Our school doesn't have that." Ulquiorra says, frowning.

"Unlucky." Grimmjow smirks. 

When they arrived, they both headed into Grimmjow's house first to pick up his sleeping gear and dump his school clothes. They walked into the kitchen to grab a drink first, Grimmjow's mother was there. 

"Hey mom, I'm staying they night at Ulquiorra's, okay? See you tomorrow." He says as she stares at the both of them going up the stairs. 

"So this is your bedroom? It's cleaner than I thought." Ulquiorra says as he looks around the room.

"It hasn't had a chance to get dirty yet." Grimmjow laughs.

Ulquiorra smirks and goes to sit on the bed while Grimmjow got changed in the corner. He has a nice figure, Ulquiorra muses to himself before turning away so he could look out the window instead. 

"Right, let's get going." Grimmjow says. 

"Got everything you need?" Ulquiorra asks.

Grimmjow nods, "Probably. Even if I do forget something I can just run back over and grab it anyway." 

They both head on over to Ulquiorra's house and open the door to find Gin sprawled out on the couch. 

"Oh, a visitor. Hello, Grimmjow." Gin says, smiling. 

Grimmjow tries to recall ever telling the man his name, or having ever even met the man. "Uh yeah, hello." He replies awkwardly.

"Sorry about calling the cops on you guys, we were just worried, you know." Gin says. 

"It's fine, turned out amusing in the end anyway." Grimmjow says, waving his hand dismissively.

"Well, we're heading upstairs now if you'll excuse us. We'll be down for dinner." Ulquiorra says before leading Grimmjow to the stairs and heading on up.

As they reached the top of the stairs a shout of 'wear a condom!' could be heard as well as the defeated groan of Ulquiorra as he stalks over to his bedroom door and pulls it open more violently than was necessary. 

As they walk into the bedroom, Grimmjow shuts the door behind himself and turns to Ulquiorra. "Does he think that we're..." He motions between the two of them. 

"He thinks that because I love the scarf you got me and that we're now always hanging out that I'm 'head over heels' for you or something and that he's 99% sure we're 'banging'." Ulquiorra says, falling face first onto his bed and letting out a loud groan. 

"Oh, I see. Well he can think what he wants, I don't really care." Grimmjow says, sitting down beside Ulquiorra.

"Just so you know, he might think those things but he knows they're not true. Besides, he was just joking around. He does it a lot." Ulquiorra says, rolling over to look up at Grimmjow. 

"Ah, I see. So... what movie are we gonna watch?" Grimmjow asks, deciding to change the mood. 

"Well, you can go through the movie stand over there and choose whatever one you like. But I get to choose the next movie." Ulquiorra says. 

"We could just stream from the internet, you know. I brought my laptop." Grimmjow says, "That way we can watch anything." 

"Oh. Yeah sure, that's a good idea. Well then can I choose the movie first?" Ulquiorra asks. 

"Go for it." Grimmjow says, pulling out his laptop and plugging the charge into a power-point near the side of the bed. He hands the laptop over to Ulquiorra. 

After a few minutes of browsing, Ulquiorra finally settled on a movie that Grimmjow hadn't watched before. A movie by the name of Sala Samobójców, a foreign movie that focuses on depression and how the internet can be both a good and bad thing at the same time as well as how it takes only one person to do something that could take a drastic toll on someone else. 

They set the laptop up and grabbed some extra blankets from the cupboard. Climbing into the corner of the queen sized bed, Grimmjow wraps himself in blankets as Ulquiorra bunches up next to him. They lay the laptop in between them and fix the blanket position a few times before finally pressing the play button.

Grimmjow asked a lot of questions during the movie, not that Ulquiorra minded much. 

"Is this a real game he's playing?" 

"No, it's just made for the movie."

"Why didn't he scare them with the gun? I thought that's what he wanted to do."

"Well didn't want to get arrested either." 

"She's really pretty, both herself and her avatar. What do you think?" 

"Well, I think she looks like someone I could be friends with but, I can't tell if she's attractive to me or not because I'm gay, remember. It doesn't mean I cant figure out when someone is good looking or not, but there's no attraction for me."

"DID HE JUST DO WHAT I THINK HE DID?!" 

"Shut up and watch it." 

"Are you crying?" 

"...No." 

The movie ended and they sat there talking about it for a few minutes. Ulquiorra had definitely been crying, because his eyes were red around the edges and kind of glassy, though he repeatedly denied it. Grimmjow admitted that the ending definitely stabbed him in the heart and then wrenched it out, but he didn't cry, much to Ulquiorra's silent annoyance. 

They chattered for a few more minutes before eventually Aizen called out to them that dinner was ready. They clambered down the stairs and into the kitchen where two plates of food were made up already. It was lasagna, Ulquiorra notes, one of his favorites. Gin and Aizen were already seated at the dining table. They quickly grabbed some knives and forks and seated themselves at the table as well. 

"So, Grimmjow, how are you?" Aizen asks, starting off the conversation on a friendly note.

"I'm fine, thanks." Grimmjow replies, trying his best to not just eat the lasagna as quickly as possible, and trying even harder to not think about wanting seconds once he's finished the piece he has.

"How's school going?" Aizen continues.

"Oh, it's going great so far." Grimmjow replies.

"So far?" Gin says.

"Well, I just moved here. So everything's new to me." Grimmjow explains. 

"I see you have a tattoo, did you get that done at the same time as Ulquiorra did?" Aizen asks, his eyes boring into Grimmjow's, making him uneasy. 

"Yeah, I did." Grimmjow says, taking another bite of his food and chewing slowly.

"Well, I'm not very fond of these tattoos, but I can't do anything about it, I suppose. But were you the one to encourage him to get it?" Aizen asks. 

"Dad, no. I told you I wanted to get it myself and when I told Grimmjow my idea, he said he would get one too. So it's no ones fault that I got them." Ulquiorra says, defending Nnoitra's idea.

"Fine, fine. I'll ignore this subject matter for now." Aizen says, clearly noticing the possible rising of tension in the air.

Silence reigned over the table for a minute before Gin took control over conversation matters. "So have you two done it yet?" He grins.

Ulquiorra slams his fork down onto the table, "Grimmjow and I are not dating." He grits through clenched teeth. 

"Come on, I'm just having a bit of a laugh. Lighten up, Ulqui." Gin smiles.

"How can I lighten up? You've been bugging me ever since Grimmjow became my friend! Why?" Ulquiorra growls.

"He's just my friend, ok?" Grimmjow says, frowning at Ulquiorra's parents. 

"Oh, but how do we know that for sure?" Gin continues to tease, "You're the first friend he's made so quickly. There's no way you cant be dating."

"Dad, shut up. Shut up right now." Ulquiorra hisses. 

"Someone's in denial~!" Gin sings in a sing-song voice.

Ulquiorra slams his fists down on the table and stands up. He doesn't even bother tucking his chair and stomps his way upstairs. Assholes, he thinks. 

"Look what you've done now." Aizen says quietly as Gin looks not even the slightest bit worried. 

"He'll be fine." Gin replies.

"I'll go check on him, Grimmjow you can grab seconds if you want them. Otherwise they'll be chucked after this, fridge is full." Aizen says, standing up and following Ulquiorra upstairs. 

Lying face first on his bed, Ulquiorra decides that he shouldn't have invited Grimmjow over for the night, he should have just gone to his house. The teasing from Gin isn't bad, it's just fucking annoying, he thinks. A small knock on the door wakes him from his thoughts. He tells them to come in, hoping it's Grimmjow.

"Are you ok?" Aizen asks quietly.

"He's so annoying." Ulquiorra groans out, "Why can't he ever just leave me alone? Every time I make a friend, he scares them away. If he scares Grimmjow away I'll be left with just Nnoitra and sort of Szayel. He scared away Orihime, she didn't like coming to the house anymore. Now we cant even talk." 

"I understand. But Gin, he..." Aizen pauses, trying to think of what to say," He keeps himself going by teasing other people. You know how he likes to keep everything bottled up inside him, and every now and again that strain will make him say something that he will end up regretting later on. When he teases me, I just go along with it, and it it makes us both happy in the end. But you don't just play along with it, you take it to heart and get upset over trivial things. But we're not going to get mad at you for that, because we have so much progress now, whereas before, before you wouldn't even talk unless spoken to. We've gotten a lot better now, and it's good. But even so, this temper you can get, you have to learn to control it. You know how mad I get at Gin when he eats all my strawberries? I absolutely despise it when he steals them! But you don't see me getting all angry, do you?" 

"Well you do get angry at Gin a lot. Over silly thing's like Strawberries. I saw you throw a cooking pan at him because he ate the whole batch once." Ulquiorra smirks into the pillow at the memory. 

"Well, ok sometimes I get mad at him, but he can't help doing these things, just as you can't help your anger. But these are thing's we can learn to control over time, and so far we have just let this issue continue for longer than needs be. If you can't learn to control it soon, we'll have to seek extra help again, and we don't want that. We've had enough of that. So let's try and work on it together, ok?" Aizen says, walking over to the side Ulquiorra's bed and patting him on the head before retreating back out the door.

A few minutes later Grimmjow comes back into the room and climbs back into his spot on the bed. He looks over at Ulquiorra who's still lying face first on the pillow. He reaches over and shakes his shoulder. 

"Hey, you ok?" Grimmjow asks in concern.

"Yeah, I'm feeling better now." Ulquiorra mumbles. 

"That's good. Do you want to continue watching movies?" Grimmjow asks.

"One more. I'm getting a bit tired now." Ulquiorra replies, shifting position so he can see the screen of the laptop. 

"What genre do you want to watch?" Grimmjow asks. 

"Comedy." Ulquiorra mumbles. 

"How about Blades of Glory?" Grimmjow asks. 

"What's that one about?" Ulquiorra asks curiously.

"You'll see if you watch it." Grimmjow replies, smirking. 

Grimmjow puts the movie on and they both start watching it. Ulquiorra didn't ask a single question during the whole movie, but did chuckle at the funny scenes every now and again, and felt his face scrunch up in second hand pain during the 'icy hot super slide' scene. 

"That was a good movie." Ulquiorra says as he shuffles down into the blankets of the bed. 

"Yeah, I thought it would be one you might like." Grimmjow replies, smirking as he shuts down the laptop and places it under the bed beside him. 

They both find a comfortable sleeping arrangement and decide to chat until one of them falls asleep, and the other follows suit soon after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this far.


	6. A Stressful Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oho? Oho ho ho? What's this? A good start to a new chapter? You're welcome. As for why this update took a little while? My laptop died and I had to get it fixed. Thank God that I didn't lose any of my fanfics. I could have updated, but there was no way I was going to be writing on my phone when I'm already so bad at texting. By the way, I'm sure you noticed me posting other stories, but rest assured, I was using the family computer and therefore was not willing to restart this entire chapter. (Laptop died in the middle of the chapter and I bet you can tell how long it's been sitting unfinished.)

Grimmjow woke to the horrible sound of an alarm blaring. Forgetting momentarily where he was, he swears loudly and rolls onto his side. Only to find out that he couldn't. A pair of arms were wrapped around him. Alarm bells rang in, and out, of Grimmjow's head before calming down enough to remember that he stayed the night at Ulquiorra's house. He looked down to see Ulquiorra still sleeping soundly, arms wrapped around Grimmjow's waist, mouth wide open with soft snores coming out.

 

Shit, how does he manage to sleep through the awful noise of that alarm? Grimmjow is left to wonder.

 

Looking over at the bedside table, he sees the alarm and reaches out, smashing the off button, careful to avoid the snooze. Grimmjow wondered why the alarm was even set when they had a day off today. He looked back down at Ulquiorra, eyes wondering. He wasn't particularly embarrassed having woken up in this position, as he's slept over with friends enough to know that it was a very common occurrence to wake in odd or questionable positions. His gaze wanders over Ulquiorra's form as the smaller boy sleeps. He has a small frame, thinner than he looks in every day clothing. His face is peaceful, and as Grimmjow looks closer he notices small freckles, hard for the eye to see normally, decked out across Ulquiorra's face. Either they were hard to see anyway, or Grimmjow just hadn't had the time to study his friend's features.

 

Damn, he looks really cute right now. Grimmjow flushes lightly as he thinks of it. I hope I'm not getting a crush... Shit, what if I am? Nah, lot's of people are cute, not just him. It wouldn't be bad if I had a crush anyway, people just happen to get them all the time. It's natural; awkward, but natural.

 

A sudden thumping noise from outside the door startles Grimmjow out of his thoughts. The noise grows closer with every passing second. With a loud crash the door to the bedroom swings open and rebounds off the wall as Gin steps in quickly.

 

"Breakfast is ready!" He yells, jolting Ulquiorra awake.

 

He pauses as he looks at the two boys laying in bed, "Ah, I see you two got comfy last night. You were very quiet, I didn't expect that."

 

"Fuck off..." Ulquiorra groans, burying his face in the pillow and rolling to the side.

 

"Now now, don't be like that. I was only having a little fun." Gin grins, "But in all seriousness, breakfast is ready if you want any."

 

Gin leaves, shutting the door behind him on his way out. Grimmjow turns to Ulquiorra, "Does your dad think we're dating?"

 

"He knows that we're not, but he likes to tease. It gets really annoying, actually. He does it every time a friend comes over."

 

"That sucks." Grimmjow replies.

 

Ulquiorra just shrugs, "I might be used to it but that doesn't stop it from being annoying."

 

They lay there in silence for a little bit before finally pulling themselves up off the bed and down to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. Sitting down at the kitchen table, they grab servings of waffles and whipped cream. Grimmjow eyes the small bowl of blueberries and strawberries before giving in and chucking a few on his plate.

 

"So what are you two going to be doing today?" Aizen asks as he grabs himself a serving and sits down across from Grimmjow.

 

"I thought we might go to the movies." Ulquiorra replies, face buried in his food.

 

"A date, huh?" Gin says, grinning.

 

"No, not a date. Just seeing a movie with a friend." Ulquiorra replies quickly.

 

"Right~" Gin says, stabbing a waffle with a knife, "What movie are you guys seeing?"

 

"Not sure yet. We'll decide when we get there." Ulquiorra mumbles.

 

"So how did you two become friends?" Aizen asks.

 

"Similar interests, I guess." Grimmjow shrugs.

 

"Men?" Gin grins.

 

"No, it was Pokemon." Grimmjow replies, "You're the second person to say that. Why is that everyone's first assumption?"

 

"I was just messin' with you. Pokemon? Really? Everyone is obsessed with that now." Gin says, shoveling a few strawberries into his mouth.

 

"I heard they released an app for it. It's causing mayhem." Aizen says.

 

"Wait, really? I hadn't heard about it." Grimmjow says.

 

"You haven't? How the hell did you not hear about it? It's all over social media." Ulquiorra replies in shock.

 

"I dont really use social media very often, honestly." Grimmjow admits.

 

"Oh. Then... do you read the newspaper? Have you not heard people talking about it?" Ulquiorra continues.

 

"Dude, no, I just moved here and moving was mayhem. I haven't had anything to do with anything for ages." Grimmjow mumbles.

 

"Well you should definitely try it out. I think you'll like it." Ulquiorra says.

 

"Sure, I'll check it out later." Grimmjow says.

They finished up their breakfast and headed back up to Ulquiorra's room to get changed for the day. They took turns having their showers and Grimmjow had to rush back over to his house for a change of clothes. Finally they were ready to leave and had a good 15 minutes to get to the bus station. Heading out the door they made their way down the street to the bus station across the road by the park. The bus pulled up and they clambered on and payed their fare. There was a few empty spots near the back of the bus, so they took them.

 

 

"Are we really going to go see a movie? Because I don't have enough money to do that." Grimmjow says, turning to face Ulquiorra.

 

"Don't worry, I'll pay for you." Ulquiorra replies.

 

"Are you ok with doing that?" Grimmjow asks worriedly.

 

"It's fine, I promise. I already have tickets since I was going to take Nnoitra a few weeks ago but since we never had time I couldn't do it. Today is the movie's final airing date and Nnoitra is unavailable so I'm going to be taking you." Ulquiorra explains.

 

"Oh. I thought you said you didn't know what movie we were seeing?" Grimmjow says.

 

"If I said a movie title then dad would have found some way to make it a sexual reference." Ulquiorra grumbles.

 

"Oh. Your dad's annoying, sorry." Grimmjow replies.

 

"Yeah, he is. I know he's just joking but he does it all the time. It's gotten so old." Ulquiorra complains.

 

"So what movie are we seeing?" Grimmjow asks, deciding a change of subject would be a good idea.

 

"Oh, it's a movie re-run of The Crow. It was one of my all time favorites. I really hope you enjoy it. Oh maybe... you've already seen it." Ulquiorra says.

 

"The Crow? Actually, I have heard of it but not seen it." Grimmjow replies, grinning, "I can't wait to watch it with you."

 

Ulquiorra turns his head away, "Yeah, it will be fun."

 

"How far away is the cinema?" Grimmjow asks.

 

"Unfortunately, it'll be about half an hour since we don't have a cinema in this town." Ulquiorra says, "I'd like to get there quickly so we can get an earlier screening time."

 

"Why an earlier one?" Grimmjow asks out of curiosity.

 

"Then we have the rest of the day free." Ulquiorra says.

 

"Ooh, neat." He replies with a grin on his face.

 

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Ulquiorra asks a question, "How are things with your mother?"

 

"Not sure, I've kind of avoided her for a bit." Grimmjow sighs, "Her, and the topic entirely, to be honest."

 

"I see..." Ulquiorra says.

 

"Hey, speaking of family, didn't you say a few days ago that you lived with siblings?" Grimmjow asks, suddenly remembering a previous conversation they had.

 

"Oh. Well, I do, but they're hardly home lately because of school camps and such." Ulquiorra explains.

 

"I'm guessing they're younger, then?" Grimmjow says, thinking about what Ulquiorra's siblings could be like.

 

"Yeah, they are. Their names are Toshiro and Hinamori." Ulquiorra chuckles lightly, "Toshiro is so troublesome. Always getting dad mad all the time. Hinamori is nice, a little dipsy but nice. We normally get along, but I guess it must be hard for them since, obviously, since none of us are blood related. They may be young but, they only joined our family a few years ago."

 

"They sound nice." Grimmjow smiles.

 

Ulquiorra nods, "Yeah, they really are."

 

"I kind of wish I had a sibling. I have a lot of distant cousins and stuff, but no siblings." Grimmjow says, shrugging lightly.

 

"Does it get lonely with no siblings?" UIquiorra asks.

 

"Hmm, sometimes. But then I remember how siblings apparently act with each other and I don't feel so bad about not having any." Grimmjow grins.

 

"It's nice to have siblings, sometimes." Ulquiorra says.

 

"I guess, but I don't think I'm cut out for it, honestly." Grimmjow shrugs lightly. "Besides, I'm not fond of kids so if they're younger than me then we would probably fight a lot."

 

"Oh well. You don't have any so it's not worth the discussion, really." Ulquiorra replies.

 

"I guess." Grimmjow pauses, "What do you want to do after the movie?"

 

"Figured we could grab some lunch, maybe go to the arcade or something." Ulquiorra says.

 

"Ooh, nice." Grimmjow grins.

 

As Grimmjow and Ulquiorra were chatting about what games they were planning to play at the arcade, he noticed the bus had pulled up to let someone on. The boy had dyed bright green hair and what appeared to be a small bruise on the side of his chin just below his lip. He had a pair of earphones in his ears, but the music could still be heard if he walked close enough to someone. He looked like a real trouble maker. His build was small and gangly but the way he walked screamed 'proud and smart-assed'. A prick, in other words.

 

Right Grimmjow was with his previous assumption, because as the boy drew nearer he saw Grimmjow and Ulquiorra, with Ulquiorra pressed up against Grimmjow's shoulder chatting on about some arcade game. He made a disgusted face and walked up to them, pulling an earbud out of his ear.

 

"You guys fucking gay or something?" He spits, "If you are don't do that shit in public, it's gross."

 

Ulquiorra looks up and frowns but doesn't say anything, Grimmjow glares at the boy, "We're not going out, and even if we are what the fuck does it have to do with you?" He growls.

 

"Homos are disgusting and should keep their dirty fetishes to themselves." The boy says, looking at the in disgust.

 

"There's nothing wrong being gay, you fucking prick. Keep your ass away from other people's business," Grimmjow hisses, "Or are you looking for a fight?"

 

"Don't, it's not worth it just leave it be." Ulquiorra whispers, "He's just being a dick."

 

"No, I'm not just leaving him be, he's an asshole and needs to learn there is nothing wrong with being gay." Grimmjow says, standing up out of his seat to confront the stranger.

 

"Nothing wrong with it? It's a sin and just morally wrong!" The boy nearly yells, making a few passengers turn around to start watching the scene.

 

"Morally wrong!?" Grimmjow is shouting now, the bus driver is starting to take note, "You know what's morally wrong? Going up to two complete strangers you've never even met and shouting at them without knowing anything at all, all because you were ASSUMING they were together and even after they tell you they are not, also that they dont find anything wrong with being gay, you STILL continue the discussion in the hopes of starting a fight! THAT is morally wrong, and disgusting. Don't talk to me or my friend ever again."

 

The next thing Grimmjow knew he was punched in the jaw, and it didn't even hurt. Not him, at least. As the boy was holding his sore knuckles, Grimmjow held back his laughter and punched the boy in the neck, winding him and sending him stumbling backwards coughing and spluttering. The bus had stopped again and the bus driver stood up from his seat, marching up to the back of the bus where the two boys were glaring at each other, one of them gasping for breath.

 

"What the hell is going on here?" The bus driver growled, "Who started this?"

 

The winded boy pointed towards Grimmjow and Ulquiorra, who was still seated in his seat and looking like he really didn't want to be there at the time. The bus driver glared at them as Grimmjow tried to explain what happened. The bus driver wasn't buying it. He went to kick the both of them off, the other boy grinning, when another passenger stood up suddenly.

 

"Um, don't kick them off. They didn't do anything. It was that boy there." She said, pointing at the boy still clutching his neck. "He went over to them and started saying all these horrible rude things out of nowhere."

 

The boy was glaring daggers at the small black haired girl when the bus driver turned to the boy, "You lied to me?"

 

The boy shook his head, unable to speak.

 

"How many people here can tell me what happened?" The bus driver yells.

 

A few people pointed to the boy with his hands around his own neck, other's didn't do anything. Apparently that was all the bus driver needed to make a decision. He walked over the the boy and grabbed him the front of his shirt, dragging him to the front of the bus and pushing him out the door. His bus fair was not returned to him. Grimmjow gave his thanks to the bus driver and the few passengers to stick up for them. He went over to the girl who spoke up first.

 

"Hey, thanks for that." Grimmjow says.

 

"It's no problem. I'm used to people calling me names for being bisexual and stuff, so I knew I had to say something." She says, grinning.

 

"Cool. What's your name?" Grimmjow asks, thinking that this girl seems like a cool chic to have as a friend.

 

"Cirucci." She replies, holding out a hand for him to shake, "I can give you my number if you want to be friends?"

 

"Yeah, that would be great. Thanks." Grimmjow says, pulling out his phone and allowing her to input her number.

 

Cirucci glances behind Grimmjow to Ulquiorra, who was staring at them, glaring a little. She chuckles, "Hey, I think your boyfriend's jealous. Better go comfort him."

 

Grimmjow turns around to look at Ulquiorra, who turns away to stare out the window with a red tinge dusting his cheeks, Grimmjow stares for a second before turning back to Cirucci, "He's not boyfriend." He mumbles.

 

"Yet." She smirks. "Done, you can take your phone now."

 

"Thanks." Grimmjow says, giving her a nod and then moving back to his seat.

 

"Do you fancy her?" Ulquiorra asks, glancing sideways at Grimmjow.

 

"Hm? Nah, just thought we could be friends." Grimmjow explains. "She's Bi, and I'm kind of still questioning myself but also not really? I think I've got it all figured out, but still. I want to be sure."

 

"I see." Ulquiorra says, going back to staring out the window.

 

Grimmjow opens up his messages, ready to send one.

 

**[Grimmjow-Cirucci]**

  
**[to Cirucci]:** what did you mean by 'yet'? ? ? ? ?  
 **[Cirucci]:** I have no idea what you are talking about---? also I still dont know your name?   
**[to Cirucci]:** names grimmjow, anyway- you know what i mean. i said ulqui wasnt my bf and you said 'yet'   
**[to Cirucci]:** explanation?????? please??  
 **[Cirucci]:** Well, he clearly feels something for you, dude. You can't be blind, right? Do you have feelings for him?  
 **[to Cirucci]:** i dont think he likes me in that way though  
 **[to Cirucci]:** and idk if i like him like that  
 **[to Cirucci]:** i think?  
 **[Cirucci]:** So you might have feelings for him?  
 **[to Cirucci]:** idk! i mean,,, ive thought he looks cute a few times but im still not sure, i mean we only just met recently i mean idk!! dont crushes usually take time or something??   
**[Cirucci]:** Omg, dude you're such a noob at dating? Whatever, we all had to start somewhere I suppose. Okay, so if you need help figuring out your feelings, try asking me a few questions and I can try and help you.  
 **[to Cirucci]:** uum ok, i cant think of any questions so can you ask them or something??   
**[Cirucci]:** UGH, fine. Do you think he is cute? Does your heart beat faster every time you see him? Would you sleep in the same bed? Would you hug him? Would you kiss him? Would you have sex with him?  
 **[to Cirucci]:** yeah, sometimes, already have, yeah, um maybe?, thats too personal   
**[Cirucci]:** Answer it anyway.  
 **[to Cirucci]:** then, only maybe? idk though   
**[Cirucci]:** There you go. You're definitely developing a crush. Probably. Anyway, my stop is here so I'll chat more with you later. I've got to go to work.   
**[to Cirucci]:** thanks,, bye (or should i say good-bi)   
**[Cirucci]:** Never do that again.   
**[Cirucci]:** But good one, so you're forgiven.

 

  
Grimmjow shuts his phone off and places it in his pocket. Ulquiorra looks back at him, "Thank you, by the way."

 

"For what?" Grimmjow asks.

 

"For fighting that boy from before. I could never have done it myself." Ulquiorra admits, "I mean, I could physically, but not in public. I hate confrontation that is unnecessary"

"Of course I'd stick up for you, for both of us. Even if we were dating, I'd do it. Hell, I would do it even harder, then. I'll always fight assholes like that." Grimmjow grins, watching as Ulquiorra's cheeks go pink again and he turns away.

 

"I bet someone has already told you, but you look really cute when you blush." Grimmjow says, turning his head away to hide his own blush rapidly making it's way onto his face.

 

"I don't!" Ulquiorra replies, playfully smacking Grimmjow's arm.

 

"Pfft, don't deny it." Grimmjow chuckles.

 

The two boys continue to chatter and banter until the bus finally reaches their destination and they hop off after paying their fares. Ulquiorra checks which direction to go before grabbing Grimmjow's arm and dragging him along in the direction of the cinema. When they arrived, they went to the bathroom to freshen up a bit before grabbing their tickets and some food with drinks. They found their seats and waited for the pre-movie adds to finish.

 

Finally the movie started and Grimmjow payed close attention to the screen.

 

_"Is he human again or something else?"_   
_"Sort of."_   
_"Do you think he's hot?"_   
_"Grimmjow, please."_   
_"Answer it, Ulqui."_   
_"I guess."_   
_"Oh shit! Damn, oh my G O S H."_   
_"Grimmjow we're in a cinema! Do you WANT us to be kicked out!? Sit down and don't yell!"_

 

When the movie ended they left the cinema in silence, chucking their rubbish in the bins. Grimmjow walked over to the small indoor fountain and sat by the edge, waiting for Ulquiorra to return from the bathroom. While he sat there he pulled out his phone to text Cirucci again.

 

**[Grimmjow-Cirucci]**

  
**[to Cirucci]:** since ur at work or something u might not see this but-   
**[to Cirucci]:** i called him cute  
 **[to Cirucci]:** i hope it counts as flirting  
 **[to Cirucci]:** he blushed even more when i said it  
 **[to Cirucci]:** but i still dont know if i have a crush on him, it doesn't feel like a crush  
 **[to Cirucci]:** ive thought a few guys were cute before same as ulqui soooo...

 

As Grimmjow had expected, there was no answer. Finally Ulquiorra returned from the bathroom and sat beside Grimmjow.

 

"What do you want to do for lunch?" Ulquiorra asks.

 

"Whatever you want. I'm fine with anything." Grimmjow shrugs, "You don't have to pay for me if you dont want to."

 

"I am paying for you, you don't have any money left." Ulquiorra says, "Besides, I do want to do it."

 

"Thank you." Grimmjow replies, giving Ulquiorra a small grin.

 

"Right. Let's get sushi." Ulquiorra replies, quickly turning away and jumping to walk towards the food-court.

 

"Sure, sounds good." Grimmjow says nonchalantly, silently rejoicing in his head at the thought of having his favorite food.

 

They find a sushi shop and grab some bentos before looking for a spot to sit down and eat. Finally there's some free seating beside what appears to be the ugliest looking stature Grimmjow thinks he's ever seen in all his 18 years of life. Not that he was about to complain, since they finally found a seat. For the first few minutes they ate in silence, neither being able to think of a topic to chat about. It wasn't an awkward silence, more of a pleasant one.

 

Suddenly there was a tap on Grimmjow's shoulder and he jumped a little in surprise.

 

"Hey, fancy seeing you here." Ichigo says as he stands beside the table they're eating at, "and you, Ulquiorra." He adds with a glance at Ulquiorra who just glares at him.

 

"Go away, Ichigo." Ulquiorra mutters.

 

"No way, you're hogging Grimmjow all to yourself." Ichigo retaliates, "Let me talk to him for once."

 

Ichigo slides into the chair beside them, Grimmjow frowns at him. "He's not hogging me, and you don't have to be so rude to him either. He didn't do anything to you."

 

"Didn't do anything to me personally, but to a very close friend of mine." Ichigo sends a glare to Ulquiorra, "Didn't you? Or did you not tell him about it?"

 

"It's none of your business what happened, Ichigo. My friend here had nothing to do with it so why concern him?" Ulquiorra snaps.

 

"What's going on?" Grimmjow asks, "Someone explain?"

 

"Alright then, I'll explain it to you." Ichigo growls, "This shithead Ulquiorra dated my best friend. She was in _LOVE_ with him! We all thought they were getting along great when _ONE DAY_ she comes to me in tears. I ask her what's wrong and she won't tell me, she tells me that HE promised her not to tell anyone. All I knew is that they were no longer together and she was heartbroken. I don't understand _WHY_ she still hangs out with him! Why are they still friends!? Even after all that?"

 

"You keep _ASSUMING_ that I hurt her in some way other than emotionally!" Ulquiorra says, his voice had raised slightly and Grimmjow decided he wouldn't butt in any time soon.

 

"But you _MUST_ have and now you're forcing her to pretend to be your friend so it looks like you did nothing wrong!" Ichigo hisses, trying his best to not attract unwanted attention.

 

"You're _WRONG_ , Ichigo." Ulquiorra has deadly glare on his face, a look that could kill, "I did not physically hurt her nor am I forcing her to be my friend. You don't know the full story to it, yet you judged me before you could."

 

"You're a liar. You wont tell the truth because you're scared of me. You know that I could arrest you for abuse. That's why you wont tell me." Ichigo says.

 

Ulquiorra stays silent and instead pulls out his phone and starts texting someone.

 

"What are you doing?" Ichigo growls.

 

"I'm telling Orihime she can tell you what happened." Ulquiorra mutters, holding the phone up to prove he wasn't lying, "I need to go and be alone. Sorry Grimmjow, is it ok if we meet up later somewhere and finish this day?"

 

Grimmjow nods, "Sure. I'll meet you at your house tonight." Ulquiorra leaves, his face red with anger instead of blushing.

 

A minute later Ichigo's phone rang and he answered it quickly.

 

"Orihime, hi wha-" Ichigo started, but was cut off abruptly.

 

A blanket of silence was thrown over them as Ichigo was listening to whatever Orihime had to say, his face was annoyed at first, then shocked, and lastly regret. Grimmjow had never seen so many emotions on one persons face in under 3 minutes. He was dying to know what Orihime was telling him. Finally Ichigo put his phone down and hung up. All he could do was stare at it for a few seconds before looking up at Grimmjow.

 

"I've been such an ass." He mumbles. "Apparently Ulquiorra, he um... told her about how he was 'struggling' with his sexuality and thought it might be best to break up with her due to his realization that he might only be in to guys."

 

"Oh." Grimmjow replies, not entirely sure what to say. "Geez, you have been ass."

 

"I need to apologize to him. For everything. I know how hard it is to for someone to come out while they're already in relationship. It happened to a good friend of mine. Fuck, I really screwed up his life with all those insults." Ichigo seemed to actually regret the things he'd done, "Can you help me apologize to him?"

 

"I can help you try, I guess." Grimmjow shrugs.

 

"I'll buy something for him first. What kind of things does he like?" Ichigo asks.

 

"Geeky things. Like Pokemon and stuff." Grimmjow says, "Same as me, actually."

 

"Thanks. Do you mind helping me pick something out for him? I didn't mean to drag you in to all of this." Ichigo.

 

"At least you're apologizing." Grimmjow replies.

 

The two go off to look for something that Ulquiorra might like. They end up in a DVD store and they don't have any trouble finding things Ulquiorra would be interested in due to him having the same interests as Grimmjow. After about 20 minutes of browsing the shop they finally decide upon something they think Ulquiorra would like. As they're leaving the shop with their purchase, Ichigo turns to Grimmjow.

 

"I want to do more. Just this isn't enough to make up for 2 years of being horrible." Ichigo says, looking around them for something to buy.

 

"Well, he likes games." Grimmjow says, "Although I'm not too sure what kind apart from Pokemon."

 

"Then let's just get him Pokemon merchandise as well." Ichigo says, looking for the nearest gaming store.

 

"I have a feeling he'll only wear clothing merchandise at home. He's got a few plush toys, so maybe those would be good?" Grimmjow suggests.

 

"Thanks for the idea." Ichigo smiles. "You know, if you hadn't been there today I never would have had this conversation with Orihime, and I never would have been able to apologize to Ulquiorra, or even have the chance to do it since I technically haven't done it yet."

 

"Well, I'm glad you're going to apologize. Then maybe you both can be friends." Grimmjow says.

 

"Are we friends?" Ichigo asks, "Me and you?"

 

"I guess?" Grimmjow says, "I don't see why we aren't."

 

"Can I ask you something?" Ichigo says, a thoughtful look on his face.

 

"Sure, go for it." Grimmjow replies.

 

"Are you dating Ulquiorra?" Ichigo looks at Grimmjow directly as he asks.

 

"No, I'm not." Grimmjow replies slowly, trying to figure out where Ichigo was going with this.

 

"Would you date him?" Ichigo asks.

 

"I don't know. I mean, he's cute, but I'm still not sure if I'm truly into guys yet. I think I am. I'm 80% positive, but there is still a lingering doubt." Grimmjow admits.

 

"It's just, I think I might be into guys. Maybe." Ichigo whispers, "I think that's why I felt worse than I normally would have over Ulquiorra's situation."

 

"Oh. Aren't you with that Rukia girl?" Grimmjow asks.

 

"Sort of. See, that's the thing. She asked me if it was ok to 'take a break' in our relationship, because she would like to experiment with girls. Because she was questioning her sexuality, it got me thinking as well. So I agreed to her 'let's take a break and see how things go'. We talked it over and stuff." Ichigo says.

 

"I see where you're coming from, but why ask me if I was dating Ulquiorra?" Grimmjow asks curiously.

 

"See, again, I had a friend tell me that you were questioning your sexuality, and to see if it was true I asked those questions before. Before you ask, the friend was Nel and she's close with a friend of yours who I don't particularly get along well with." Ichigo says, "But what I'm trying to get at is since we're both either coming to terms with our sexuality or just experimenting, I was wondering if you'd... you know."

 

"Want to try going out?" Grimmjow finishes slowly.

 

Ichigo shrugs lightly and mumbles, "Yeah. That."

 

"Sure." Grimmjow replies. "I mean, can't hurt to try, right? Just experimental and all."

 

"Yeah." Ichigo smiles slightly, "I guess you're my first... boyfriend?"

 

"I guess you're my second." Grimmjow shrugs, "First was experimental but we had to break up because I moved, before you ask."

 

Ichigo nods, "Well then let's continue looking for apology material for Ulquiorra."

 

Together they continued scouring the shopping center for items that Ulquiorra would like. Eventually they came to a shop called Zing Pop Culture, which Grimmjow new instantly that it would have things that Ulquiorra would be interested in. They went inside and looked around for a bit. Eventually deciding on buying a XL Darkrai plush and replica sword called Frostmourne, which Grimmjow new Ulquiorra would appreciate if the giant Wrath of the Lich King poster above Ulquiorra's bed was anything to go by. Grimmjow secretly wondered how Ichigo got all his money when he just worked as patrol officer in his spare time after school. He knew that Frostmourne and the Darkrai plush would add up to a lot of money, plus the box set of Sherlock they bought previously at the DVD store.

 

As they were waiting in line, Grimmjow pulls out his phone again.

 

**[Grimmjow-Cirucci]**

  
**[to Cirucci]:** i got a boyfriend sorta  
 **[to Cirucci]:** he wants to experiment with his sexuality and he asked me if he could experiment with me  
 **[to Cirucci]:** i said yes so now i have a boyfriend sorta

 

Grimmjow shut his phone off after updating Cirucci on his news. Ichigo finished paying and they walked off again. This time they went straight to the parking section of the shopping center, apparently Ichigo had driven here.

 

"Is there anywhere you would like to go?" Ichigo says, glancing at Grimmjow.

 

"Wanna head to your place? I've time to kill before I meet up with Ulquiorra anyway." Grimmjow replies.

 

"Why not your place?" Ichigo asks curiously.

 

"My mom's probably home right now. We're not going great, honestly. Besides that, I live across the street from Ulquiorra so it might be a bit awkward I guess." Grimmjow shrugs.

 

"Sure. My place it is." Ichigo grins.

 

They drive to Ichigo's place and it takes a surprisingly long time. Aside from the 20 minute distance from Ulquiorra's place to the shops, it takes at least an hour to reach Ichigo's home. When they get there, Grimmjow looks around. It's not a bad place, rather small and neat. Feels like a home. When they enter through the door Ichigo gets bombarded with hugs from a small girl and what appears to be his dad.

 

"Son you're home!" An over enthusiastic father yells.

 

"Ichigo! Can you cook dinner tonight? I'm going to a friends place and I'm worried dad might try and cook!" The younger girls says, hugging Ichigo around the waist.

 

"Ok, ok both of you get off me. No, I won't cook dinner but I will order some pizza or something since we have a guest, and dad please don't try and cook because if you do we just might die." Ichigo says, grinning at his family.

 

"Oh finally, some REAL food in this house." Another voice comes from the kitchen, presumably another sibling.

 

"Yeah, sure. Now you guys go do your thing. I've got a guest here and we'll be heading out later for some business." Ichigo says, motioning for Grimmjow to come inside.

 

The girl from the kitchen just stares as they walk past to go up to Ichigo's bedroom.

 

"Did you want to try, like, couple things?" Grimmjow asks, "See if you're in to it?"

 

"What kind of things should I start with, though?" Ichigo asks.

 

"Well, if this were a normal relationship I'd probably say hugging, but I've seen you hug people in class before so hugging isn't anything new." Grimmjow starts, "How about things like kissing?"

 

"Kissing, huh?" Ichigo replies.

 

"Have you ever kissed a guy?" Grimmjow asks.

 

"Uh-uh." Ichigo shrugs, going a little red.

 

"Would you like to?" Grimmjow asks, he didn't mind the thought of kissing Ichigo, he wasn't too bad looking after all.

 

"Um, sure. I guess I'll try that out." Ichigo says, standing up off the seat on his bed.

 

Grimmjow walked over to him and placed his hands on his shoulders. With a nod of confirmation from Ichigo, Grimmjow leaned forward and gently pressed his lips to Ichigo's. They didn't move at first, then Grimmjow slowly moved his lips against Ichigo's, coaxing a reaction out of him. They kissed for around 10 seconds before Grimmjow pulled back to see how Ichigo was doing.

 

"How was it?" Grimmjow asks cautiously.

 

"It wasn't bad, I guess. Not really that different to kissing a girl." Ichigo says. "Can I try again?"

 

Grimmjow nods and this time Ichigo is the one to initiate the kiss. This kiss went longer than the previous, and would have continued if they couldn't hear the footsteps making their way up the stairs. They both broke apart quickly and went to pretending to just be chatting about school and classes.

 

"Do you guys want me to order the pizza or do you want to do it?" Ichigo's younger sister, the one from the kitchen, asks.

 

"You can do it this time, if you want." Ichigo replies to her, rather quickly. His face was still red.

 

"Yep, sure." She starts to walk away, "Also, you might want to shut your door if you're going to make out, Yuzu will probably freak out knowing you broke up with Rukia."

 

"We're not making out!" Ichigo retaliates, "And I didn't break up with Rukia. We're just taking a break."

 

"Whatever." She says, waving her hand in dismissal and walking back down the stairs.

 

The two boys talk for a bit, deciding it was a good idea to wrap the gifts for Ulquiorra just to find something to do while they killed time waiting for night to draw near. They decided they would start heading towards Ulquiorra's at 5:00 PM, reach there 6:15 PM and then knock and pray it all goes well. They also decided to keep their relationship secret for the time being as it wasn't a real relationship. When the pizza arrived they locked the bedroom door and chatted about whatever interested them at the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not hate Ichigo, please. He is small and confused and just trying to figure himself out, leave him be.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it was ok. I actually had so much planned for this series but I lost my entire workbook where i had everything written down that I was going to do, so now I gotta think it all up again.
> 
> COMMENT IF YOU GOT A PARTICULAR REFERENCE I MADE IN HERE ;)
> 
> For the reference if you don't get it --> http://nnoitraporro.tumblr.com/post/156081586302/in-reference-to-the-latest-chapter-of-my-fanfic


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